Traffic lights are everywhere you go, they are an acquired knowledge with major importance, you obey them from the day you start learning to drive, and everyone one is different, but they all have the same purpose; to maintain order and provide a logical system. Traffic lights aren’t something you think about everyday, they have become second nature, you know what each color stands for and you know that you must obey each rule. These simple boxes with three simple colors are far more than what they appear they are an orchestrated series of logical, visual and ethical appeals and a remarkable demonstration of a subtle argument with enormous importance.
All streetlights appear to be the same, they all have the same general goals, but they tell such a deeper story that is always overlooked. A streetlight can tell you a lot about a town, a certain intersection or even the time of night. For example take the streetlight at the corner of 48th and O here in Lincoln. It is at the corner of one of the busiest intersections in the city and it reflects that. It is about twice the size of a regular street light and has about twice the information. It has lights telling you when to go, when to stop, when to use caution, when to turn right, when to turn left, when to go forward and turn right, when to just turn. All of this information is needed to keep the intersection safe. On the other side of things imagine a streetlight in a small run down town that maybe sees a car three times a day. It only has the required information of when to go, stop, and use caution, or maybe it doesn’t even have that. Maybe it is a just a simple flashing yellow light, telling you to use caution at all times, it is not a busy enough intersection or town to need much more instruction.
The streetlights are making an argument for order, a sense of safety and control that must be put in place to keep our streets safe and orderly. The main point that has been put in place with a streetlight is the element of logos. Logos is the appeal to ones logic. A streetlight is filled with
nothing but logic. Think about it, you’re coming up to one of the busiest intersections in the world, right at the corner of time square and suddenly the traffic light switches from green to red, do you ignore the light and cruise straight on through, of course not. You must stop there isn’t a doubt in your mind, you use common sense and apply the breaks. It wasn’t a hard decision for you, you knew that if you would have decided to disobey this critical analogy between color and safety, that has been developed through repetition of cause and effect, you would have sent yourself plummeting into a pile of cars and only rolling the dice to see if you would have survived. Moments later at the same intersection the light turns green you now know that it is safe for you to proceed, the logical tie to the color green that has been made allows you to feel safe for you to move forward.
This analogy is something that is not inherited or a piece of born knowledge it is something you must develop. Think about the exposure one gets to the analogy of red equals stop, green means go and yellow represents caution. Even when you are a young child years away from ever placing yourself behind the steering wheel of a car, when you don’t really need to know the slightest thing about driving rules you are exposed to this analogy. You develop it through playground games. The game red light green light is a way to embed in you this analogy so when it does come time for you to start driving the analogy and cause and effect that you must execute is second nature.
Cause and effect allows for this order, because the light is green you can go, because the light is yellow you will use caution and because the light is red you will stop. It is a simple matter of cause and effect. If the argument is not taken seriously, if it is seen as worthless the results are horridness. In the year of 2006 alone there were nearly 33,000 accidents reported in the state of Nebraska (Nebraska Dept of Road Accident Record Bureau). It is easy to see that the effect of not following traffic laws result in terrible effects. One can easily compare the two sides of this argument. They really aren’t hard to see, one side is obey them and the other is to not obey. Even the traffic light in itself is complete opposites. Take the colors green and red, they are opposite of each other on the color wheel having completely different make up’s, but yet they are called complementary. They work together; they make the other better, just as in the traffic light. Stop is the exact opposite of go, but they too both complement each other, working side by side to give our lives a sense of safety and order.
These simple colors of green, red, and yellow have never ending power tied to them. They are powerful enough to save your life and keep America a civilized country to travel in, but they must be in the context of a streetlight. Outside of this context there is no longer an appeal of kairos, the appeal of time and place. Time and place is the key element of this argument. If you are walking down the street and you see a man in a red shirt you don’t automatically stop walking and wait for someone in a green shirt to walk by. You know that outside of the context of a streetlight these colors have no more meaning than the colors pink and orange flashing in the sky.
Traffic lights are commonly seen as just another part of our daily lives, but when dissected into its minute parts it is easy to see the careful planning that had been put into each light. Each light 
gives different commands, some are telling you that you are free to proceed, this is not a place of concern for you, others let you know that you must be very alert and aware of other drivers. They all no matter how complex or how simple are a perfectly developed argument directed toward our society. They are screaming that we must have order; we cannot be left to trust one another with our lives. To make sure the argument is heard they have been carefully planned out with almost all elements of a good argument, logic, ethical appeal, time and place, compare and contrast, and visual appeal. These elements are all leading us to the desired goal of creating a system of order and logical movement.
Works Cited
Nebraska Department of Roads Accident Bureau. "Types of Motor Vehicle Traffic Accidents." Nebraska Department of Roads. 26 Oct. 2007.
