Multi sex crossing icon @ Trafalgar square

CrazyToast " I don't see it doing much harm."

Really? Random symbols that are meant to signify when it safe, or not, safe for pedestrians to cross the road?

Why do you think bodies like the International Standards Organisation went to the bother of agreeing standard symbols in the first place?

• Safety.
• Inclusion of people who would not be able to read a text version (they cross language barriers and do not depend on literacy skills)
• Inclusion and independent living for people with learning disabilities.
• To facilitate learning through familiarity and rapid recognition in a risky environment.
• Visual similarity of symbols - they all indicate a human being, not some sort of astrological zodiac-sign mashup.

How about random rainbow traffic lights - where would be the harm in that?

Why stop with visual indicators? Those bumpy pavements near crossings - they are to help blind people navigate safely. Why not "queer" those too? Random symbols moulded into the pavement around "queer quarters" - why not? It is as ridiculous as messing around with pedestrian crossing signals.

Councils that go in for self-indulgent, virtue-signalling nonsense like this should be called out for excluding people who need the predictability of these signs to be able to navigate safely.

Same goes for Juells point about toilet signs: "Not what you want when you're busting for a pee, is it? A quiz."

...I'm reminded of Sean Locke on the subject of cute pub toilet signs that need to be worked out. He says "Not what you want when you're busting for a pee, is it? A quiz."

I always think this kind of thing is the brainwave of someone really really really boring and middle-of-the-road, who wants to impress everyone by how right-on they are.

Who on earth would know what that meant? The fact that it's green is a clue, but only a clue.

Got them in Manchester for Pride too. There is definitely a hetero one too. I dont see it doing much harm.

@RevealTheLegend

We learn something every day!

Perhaps cross-sex hormones are in fact the endorphin rush you might get from briskly traversing at these lights.

FFS. I assumed it was photoshopped.

Love 'symbollox' Magnetic

I await being told that the binary nature of red/green pedestrian crossing lights is distressing to some of a more fluid sexuality/identity and both colours are to be changed to clear-as-mud brown.

from @Kazooboohoo
Ampelmännchen are a legacy of the evil Communist regime in the East

Or the furore about them was a sign that the rejoining German states would be rolled over and every sign of their DDR time mashed into dust even if it was better, or equal or not harming anything from the west.

I remember the Ampelmännchen discussion and at the time I was (and still am) aghast that adopting the cute ones, or having 2 different types could POSSIBLY confuse anyone using a crossing. I was really happy about the fightback and whenever i see Ampelmännchen it brings a smile to my face.

Very happy, also, to report that there are Pride ones in Cologne (of course) and in Otto's birthplace there are some Otto ones. And in Mainz there are several with Mainzelmännchen. But the very very best ones are the Karl Marx ones in Trier.

Thinking of Dakota Fanning's marvellous performance in "Please Stand By," I'm wondering if this has been checked with A-Spectrum people?

IWouldPreferNotTo

Nice little dig at people with disabilities there.

'I really doubt anyone who confused by the symbol on the green man not being precisely what they’re used to would have enough IQ points to be able to put one foot in front of the other.'

Pretty harsh.
Plenty of people struggle if things aren't as they expect. Plenty of people might be confused.

That's a really small minded, I'm ok and fuck everyone else post. So someone pretty independent but maybe with issues that would make this confusing should what, stay the fuck at home? Jesus.

That is funny.

Here we celebrate Pride by painting the crosswalks intersections in rainbow colours. The city was very proud this summer to announce that six new crossings had been painted.

What is it with traffic issues and Pride?

The ones in Trafalgar Square have been there for ages. I just mutter and cross when green.

Wanky idea

When they muck around with this stuff i always wonder how tourists etc or little kids will manage.

Like when they changed the names of some tube stations temporarily, i forget why.

For some people this will be really confusing. I don't get it.

What we need is something like this design, from Germany:

Ampelmännchen are a legacy of the evil Communist regime in the East. The sooner middle class twerps get over Ostalgie for nasty Vita Cola and fewer cars on the roads (as if it was a good thing that no-one could afford cars, because global warming) and realise what a despicable, murderous, barbaric regime it was, the better.

As for the moronic lights in Trafalgar Square, they've been there for years (indeed may have been put in under the Mayorship of the present PM, though I don't want to slander him if it wasn't so). Only yesterday I crossed Trafalgar Square and heard a tourist in a thick Yorkshire accent say to her son in absolute innocence: "What sort of sign is that for the green man?"

Which fills me with hope 99% of people don't actually know what the Trafalgar Square green man signs (and there are about 8 of them at separate crossing points, so it isn't just gay, straight, bisexual)and don't care, and that this bullshit will go away very quickly.

Novelty green/red man lights have been a thing in London for years now.

Is it the Symbol that Prince used??

It's a sign of the times

What we need is something like this design, from Germany:

If you're confused by that then you probably have a carer to help you cross the road.

I remember when these first appeared a few years ago. Plenty of people (sans carers - maybe that was the problem ) were confused by them. The symbol of a green, non-sex-specific person walking is fairly universally recognised as a signal to cross the road. This symbol is utterly meaningless in the context of traffic flow / pedestrian rights of way.

At the height of the Cultural Revolution in China, the Red Guards turned their attention to traffic lights. Red, they decided, was the colour of the workers and progress, and so meant Go. The lights would be reprogrammed. But you never knew which had been ideologically revised, and which were the reactionary running dog traffic lights of imperialism. Result: Predictable.

The perfect cautionary tale for our crazy days.

And one that allows cyclists and pedestrians is called a toucan crossing, because ‘two can’ cross.