Just like motor vehicles, some pedestrians in Nantes are also entitled to their intermediate traffic light between green and red. As France Bleu Loire Océan reports, for the past two months, pedestrian traffic lights have been displaying a yellow “pedestrian” on certain roads in the city of Nantes.
Phases of experimentation
As local media explain, this is an experiment that aims to make it clear to pedestrian crossing users the exact moments when it is no longer possible to walk. Thus, as soon as the yellow light appears, “newcomers” are prohibited from entering the pedestrian crossing. As long as the pedestrian traffic light is green, pedestrians can cross without any problems. And hurry up if the light turns yellow while they are on the crosswalk.
More specifically, cameras were installed on the posts to film pedestrians and then analyse their behaviour. According to France Bleu, the images will be closely examined by the Centre for Studies and Knowledge on Risk, Environment, Mobility and Development (Cerema) in order to draw conclusions within two years.
A measure present in several cities
However, the presence of this new colour for pedestrian traffic lights is not new. According to the specialist site Auto Infos, the introduction of the yellow colour is the result of a decree published on 21 April 2023 in the Official Journal announcing the implementation of the system in six cities in France: Metz, Nancy, Nice, Strasbourg (see photo below) and Toulouse. Note that the experiment in Versailles was aborted by the municipality.
With this unprecedented measure, the main objective of the authorities is to deal with fatal accidents that occur at pedestrian crossings. In 2023, the National Interministerial Road Safety Observatory recorded the deaths of almost 439 pedestrians.
In Nantes, the introduction of this system did not fail to provoke a reaction from the union linked to Semitan, the Nantes transport company. In a press release published in April 2024, the CFDT announced that it had visited the site with a bus line manager and warned of “the risk of accidents between buses and pedestrians” due to a possible “misinterpretation” of the new signage.
Source: BFM TV
