Blue light, blue light. What do you say?
The Tucson Department of Transportation and Mobility is putting a wrinkle in the children’s nursery rhyme explaining how traffic signals work.
The department has started installing blue lights at some Tucson intersections to boost traffic enforcement efforts.
The lights that illuminate when a traffic signal turns red are supposed to make it easier for police to monitor red light runners from afar, according to a news release.
The first intersection blue light was installed Thursday for the left turn lanes at the intersection of East Grant and North Craycroft roads.
The city says it picked the intersection because it is busy and has a high rate of left-turn collisions.
Blue lights have been shown to reduce the frequency of crashes when motorists understand it lets “enforcement take place from a distance,” the news release said.
The blue lights are not cameras and do not take pictures or video.
On Wednesday, crews from Next Generation Electrical converted the traffic signal heads at the intersection to flashing yellow arrows and replaced the traffic signal mast arms for both eastbound and westbound travel, the release said.