Someone’s cross you crossed a crossing in a cross

So I was at the Rose Garden on campus with a few friends the other day, and we were looking out at the mountains when we happened to spot a guy carrying an office chair, walking casually along the road.

Now that's something you don't see every day

Call me slow, but is that some kind of a new trend now?

From Boombox to Swivel Chair

(Man’s face blurred out for his best interests)

Alright, jokes aside, I’d like to draw your attention back to the first picture up there. The focus of this post isn’t going to be on that man with the shoulder seat, but on the road on which he is walking on.

The Zebra Crossing, more commonly known as the ‘crosswalk’ or ‘pedestrian crossing’ here, is something we probably walk on every day, seeing as there are so many around campus alone. I don’t know why, but I just thought it would be interesting to find out more about these zebra crossings and see if there was a deeper history behind the origin of the name (other than the fact that the stripes look like that of a zebra’s). But nope, I couldn’t find anything other than that reasoning. Guess I overestimated mankind then.

Zebra crossing

Then, I continued reading and found out more about these fascinating traffic constructions. Did you know that other than the zebra crossing, there are also the pelican crossing, puffin crossing, toucan crossing and Pegasus crossing? What a family of animals!

And no, I don’t literally mean crossings like these:

"Honey, watch out for those birds!"

These funny named crossings are actually different types of systems for moving bodies (other than cars) to get across the road safely.

Hover your cursor over the names to see snapshots of what these crossings look like!

Pelican (PEdestrian LIght CONtrolled) crossings are traffic light crossings, yes, those we use all the time when crossing major roads. Usually constitutes a green man (go), a blinking green man (don’t start crossing), and a red man (you should be off the road by now) on the other side of the road.

Puffin (Pedestrian User-Friendly INtelligent) crossings are similar to pelican ones, but without the middle blinking green man. Instead, these crossings have special sensors built in to sense whether a pedestrian is waiting and gives the cars the red light until all pedestrians have crossed the road. It then gives the cars the green once the crossings are clear. Puffin crossing lights are positioned on the same side of the road as the pedestrian.

Toucan (two-can) crossings are traffic light crossings that allow pedestrians as well as cyclists to cross the road without dismounting from their bikes. Two can, get it? Harhar.

Lastly, Pegasus crossings, as you can probably guess from the name, are for horse-riders! (For the uninformed, Pegasus is a winged horse in Greek mythology.) So on top of having the usual pedestrian lights, there is an extension by the side for horse crossing signals. There is also a raised button for horse riders (who are elevated on the horse) to press when they want to cross the road.

So there you have it! My little knowledge gained from reading up on zebra crossings. I also glanced through some material mentioning tiger crossings and panda crossings, but couldn’t really find much information on those. Do you know of any other types of crossings used around the world?

(Picture sources: Boombox picture, zebra crossing, pelican crossing sign, puffin crossing sign, toucan crossing sign, Pegasus crossing sign)