My Wife Swears Flashing Your Headlights Changes Traffic Signals

I was complaining yesterday about some of the stoplights in Kennewick being so slow and my wife informed me about a "life" hack that can help you get through stoplights faster.

I always seem to get stuck on 4th avenue in Kennewick in the early mornings on my way to work. There is no one at the light and I'll sit there for the light to change from red to green even though there isn't any traffic around. It's frustrating.

I mentioned my frustration and my wife said that "flashing" my low beams to high beams will trigger the lights to change as you approach them. She said that it's how emergency vehicles get the lights to change for them in case of an emergency.

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I'm not totally sold on that but I did try it this morning and I'm not sure if it worked or not.

The light seemed to change faster but maybe it was my timing on approaching the light that made the difference.

So I did a little digging and thousands of people are convinced that it does work so I had to get to the bottom of it.

I don't want to be sitting on 4th Avenue flashing my lights in hopes that the light will change on me and me looking like a goof.

According to SNOPES, it's simply not true.

They say it's nothing more than a coincidence because the strobes used to change lights for an Ambulance can't be duplicated by you flashing your lights no matter how quick you are.

You also have to take into account MOST intersections don't have the equipment set up to allow for it.

The equipment you'd need to change the traffic lights is not available to us normal folks and even if it was, it takes a specific blinking pattern to change the lights.

I'm not going to lie, I'm still going to sit on 4th Avenue tomorrow morning and see if I can change the lights by flashing my headlights because a lot of people still say it works.

You can read more details here from SNOPES.COM and if it does work for you, let me know!