Borked traffic lights in NYC

This has been happening all over town lately. There was an article in the Times about it recently. The old WALK/DON'T WALK signs were replaced 7-8 years ago by these LED pictograms. The new lights are reaching the end of their lifespan and have chosen to fail in this confusing manner.

Yeah I've totes seen that around Brooklyn and had the Fail Blog impulse myself! I've never been quick on the draw with the camera though. Kudos!

indeed, these are all over manhattan, and in any other city, where jaywalking is a crime, i suppose this would be a problem, but not in manhattan!

reporting in from freezing cold helsinki,

I don't think it's a fail - it's a warning to run away, because the Red Hand Gang is coming. And you wouldn't want to be caught Red Handed.

This is probably an intentionsl failure mode.

Traffic lights are required by design specification to have multiple parallel control systems, i.e. if the green light control system malfunctions, there is a second validation mode which shares none of the original control system and can see that it's trying to go green both ways. The conflict between the two modes forces a compromise failsafe (typicallly blinking red).

It is important that the failsafe mode be readily identifiable as a malfunction while at the same time not contributing to unnecessary danger.

Failure of the crosswalk mechanism probably defaults to this obviously incorrect state rather than fool a pedestrian into thinking it's working.

it means smack that or runaway...:)

sorry...smack that and runaway :)

Come on y'all.

The message is clear: Hand + Walk = walk on your hands.

I ken y'all bein highly edjumicated and havin all thems lofty thoughts means ya miss the ground balls sometime.