It’s a funny thing about traffic lights, no matter where my travels have taken me, everybody seems to agree that green means go and red means stop.
But when it comes to a yellow, it’s not so clear.
I mean, there is an overall consensus that yellow is a warning letting you know the light is about to change red.
However, what to do on the yellow, that’s often left to interpretation.
There are some that consider the yellow light as an invitation to speed-up to beat the red light.
While others see it as a caution, so they decelerate and begin to stop.
I’m not saying either is right or wrong, I do them both. I’m saying that if you are unaware of how the local community treats the amber it could lead accidents because some are speeding up while others are preparing to stop.
Traffic lights operate a lot like a company’s culture. Behaviours mean different things to different groups, and the best cultures eliminate interpretation by being explicit about what to do on the red, the yellow and the green.