Government To Make Talking Traffic Lights To Help Blind Drivers

WASHINGTON– Starting early next year, drivers will hear new sounds every time they pass traffic lights. Officials in Washington recently passed a bill to convert every traffic light across the nation into a talking traffic light, helping all those drivers who are legally blind and somehow acquired a driver’s license.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, a sensor on the traffic light will detect a car once it gets to within fifty feet of the light, setting off an extremely loud bullhorn to alert the blind driver that a traffic light message is coming.

“We figured a bullhorn was the best way to grab someone’s attention,” laughed Robert Mitchum, spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration. “Once the bullhorn goes off, blind drivers will listen for the traffic light’s next message on whether the light’s red, yellow, or green. We’ve integrated a piercing, shrill female voice into the system just so people can’t say that they couldn’t hear it.”

Even though blind drivers are statistically safer drivers than drivers with sight, says Mitchum, the government felt it was discriminatory to have someone at a disadvantage just because they’ve lost one of their senses.

“Maybe this’ll give our blind drivers a leg up on these drivers with vision,” Mitchum added as he roasted a marshmallow inside of his car’s cigarette lighter. “Our top scientists have ingeniously created these traffic lights so that only blind people can hear them. Being that blind people have a different auditory range than those with sight, scientists were able to get the light’s decibels to hit a specific range where only the blind will hear it.”

Unfortunately, these traffic lights do come with minor flaws. Because both blind people and canines have the same advanced auditory abilities, numerous dogs have been stopping, slowing down, and going through the intersections during tests of the new lights.

“It’s a minor technicality,” Mitchum said. “Maybe we’ll invent some tiny little cars for the dogs to ride in so they won’t feel left out too.”