[gambiting]

Fyi - light goes to yellow for 3 seconds before going to red in all of EU and people don't die because of it. I'd say 5 seconds in US is unusually long.

[detaro]

I'd guess consistency is more important than the absolute value.

[crwalker]

The problem isn't the specific number, it's the intent behind changing the number and the decades of training the public on a different number.

[pkaye]

It depends on size of intersection and speed limits. Are you saying all intersections in the EU are 3s?

[egorfine]

I cannot remember seeing 5s yellow light ever (and I drove across almost all the EU). 5s yellow would certainly caught my attention in a "WTF is this" style as 5s is not just long, it's actually enormous and kinda defeats the purpose.

[tomjakubowski]

Really? Doesn't it vary depending on, say, road speed or visibility? It does in California.

[glogla]

It does in EU also. There's a EU-wide lower-bound of 3 seconds, I guess gp mixed it up.

[ska]

I suspect the problem is more expectation than absolute value.