Most drivers have never noticed 'Dallas display' lines on traffic lights and even fewer know what they are actually there for

Chances are, you’ve never noticed ‘Dallas display’ lines on traffic lights. But they actually do serve an important purpose.

We all like to think we have traffic lights sussed out.

After all, there’s three colors and they all come with clear meanings – it’s pretty clear cut, right?

Well, as the Dallas display lines prove, there’s a bit more nuance to this system than we often imagine.

Here’s what Dallas display lines on traffic lights are there for

When you’ve been sitting at a red light waiting for it to turn green, a lot of thoughts have no doubt gone through your mind.

But have you ever noticed that the lights often have lines running across them?

Upon closer inspection, you would realize that these aren’t just lines – these are louvres, aka sloping slats.

Here’s how they work.

Positioned over traffic lights – usually the green and yellow signals – these control who can see the lights at any given time.

If you were off to the side, you wouldn’t be able to see what color was coming through the slits.

Whereas if you were in the lane in front, you would be able to see that a green signal had come on.

Why is this done?

Say you were in the left-turn lane, waiting a gap in oncoming traffic.

If you were to look over at the lights and see that they’d gone yellow, you might think it was time to go.

But if those lights were intended for the lane going straight ahead, you’ve just turned into oncoming traffic – in what’s called the ‘Yellow Trap’.

This is why the Dallas Display is so handy, as it reduces the risk of people getting confused about which traffic signal they should be paying attention.

Traffic lights have more to them than you might think

We take traffic lights for granted, but there are a lot of intricacies surrounding them that often go unnoticed.

For example, have you ever wondered how they actually work? One guy took to social media to lay it all out.

Even what we think we know about traffic signals is subject to being reworked or changed.

Just take the example of the ‘fourth’ light that has been trialed around the world.

And then there were these blue lights that caught the attention of Florida drivers.

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