Gaining Status on the Streets

Given the cult-status of the former German Democratic Republic traffic men, there was no reason to think traffic women wouldn't take off too. That must have been the logic at Signal Technology Rossberg, near Zwickau, which designed the new pedestrian lights 31 years after the first developing the male version.

Only one example of the new ladylike traffic crossing has been installed so far, at Zwickau's busy Crimmitschauer / Werdauer Street intersection. The lights will have to survive a three-month trial period to see how they're received, according to city spokeswoman Angelika Michaelis.

The traffic women won't offer much competition to their male counterparts though, since Zwickau doesn't have the funds to install the pig-tailed guides throughout town. But Michaelis suggested that traffic women may gradually be phased in when lights need to be replaced.

It's odd, that the idea didn't come up sooner, since Germany's highway codes don't stipulate traffic symbols must take a male form. And the green and red ladies may just prove to be an improvement. "If these female traffic symbols attract more attention, then from a traffic safety point of view, we have been vindicated," Michaelis said.