International Prominence
In the Republic of Ireland, Belisha beacons are usually accompanied by much higher visibility dual flashing amber traffic lights on either side. Some zebra crossings have only these rather than Belisha beacons.
Brisbane, Queensland Australia briefly had a small number of Belisha beacon marked crossings in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the majority of Australian crossings are zebra crossings marked by large yellow circular signs bearing a walking legs symbol.
In Australia, recent years have seen a proliferation of various kinds of beacons and bollards, illuminated, reflective or otherwise designed for high visibility at pedestrian crossings, to which the name Belisha or "Bellisher" is occasionally erroneously applied. These high-visibility crossing markers are often placed on refuge islands in the middle of the road, in addition to or instead of at the roadside. Many of these new crossings are signposted that pedestrians must give way to traffic.
In the Netherlands Belisha beacons were used from 1957 to 1962 to indicate that pedestrians had the right of way on a particular crossing. In 1962 a law was passed that extended this to all zebra crossings and the beacons were removed.
Read more about this topic: Belisha Beacon
Famous quotes containing the word prominence:
“The force of truth that a statement imparts, then, its prominence among the hordes of recorded observations that I may optionally apply to my own life, depends, in addition to the sense that it is argumentatively defensible, on the sense that someone like me, and someone I like, whose voice is audible and who is at least notionally in the same room with me, does or can possibly hold it to be compellingly true.”
—Nicholson Baker (b. 1957)