The amount of forward, roundhouse or flying kicks these receive on a daily basis and still manage to outlive a typical Australian's lifespan is also a testament to its design.

One thing you missed is that the “Peww” noise is at such a pitch that guide dogs react very strongly to it. We used to raise guide dog pups and when we did city visits their ears stood straight up when they heard the “peww” noise. Must be like a dog whistle.

The whole part where he didn't want to patent his design so that it could be available as widely as possible for as low a cost as possible - legend!

In Slovakia we have same sound for crosswalk, but we have one better feature for disable people. There is an 3d schema of crossing, that you can feel how many basic traffic lines and most importantly tram lines you will cross. So disabled people can prepare for rails and wide street.

That’s how you pick out a fellow Aussie when you’re waiting to cross a pedestrian crossing overseas - all the Aussies have a slight delay until they realise everyone else has started walking. We subconsciously pay more attention to the noise than the man changing from red to green. Crazy how embedded that noise has become in us!

As someone who grew up in Australia, it’s strange how much I’ve taken these things for granted all my life. It was only when I watched an episode of _Arthur_ on KZfaq - namely, one of the episodes with the blind girl - where someone in the comments pointed out that they live near a pedestrian crossing where there’s a lot of older people with vision problems in the area, so the crossing makes a beeping sound. (They mentioned this because it comes up in the episode.) And I was like, “Wait… they don’t all do that?”

The internal engineering in these things is amazing as well, they are impervious to rain, traffic accidents that destroy the pole barely scratch them and the button mechanism totally protects the internal electrical switch from kicking abuse. The weakest part is the actual bolts holding the button to the pole.

It was so good, we copied it and used it in Ireland. the solution for contactless buttons that we settled on in Ireland was a PB/5 varient with a proximity sensor opposite the small red light. Just hold your hand (or anything) near the sensor and the lights are queued

As an Aussie, I forget that it's a relatively unique thing, I'm just so used to it, I would miss it if it was not there

There aren't many things I get patriotic about, but the PB/5, polymer banknotes, and the Australian Consumer Law I can get behind.

As an Australian I thought this was how crosswalks always we’re everywhere, also I didn’t know that it made a constant beeping sound i thought it turned off, really shows how well engineered they are.

We use the PB5 in Dublin, and yeah, they are noticeably better than other crossing buttons!

I never knew that Melbourne's crosswalk buttons were more 'clicky' compared to Sydney's more 'boppy' sounds.

The fact that a kid invented a kickable version is hilarious to me, because I've been kicking those things for years, and everyone told me I was weird. But nooo, once you put it to a reasonable kicking height, suddenly the same idea is "brilliant" and "innovative". I kid. Good on this girl for taking this thing that I'm sure everyone's done at least once, and making it practical.

Here in Singapore we've been using this PB/5 design too since around the start of this millennium (replacing older smaller buttons mounted on a cuboid attached to the traffic light) but the button's arrow never points up/downwards here, & we use a flashing green instead of a flashing red man. The sound is also switched off at night due to complaints about their noise by nearby residents. Additionally the buttons for pedestrian crossings used by more senior citizens e.g. in towns with more of them have a card reader above them that lights up the green man for longer if you tap a senior citizen EZ-Link (our public transport stored-value) card on it. We had one crossing in downtown at the junction of Bras Basah Rd & Bencoolen St though that's switched off between 7-11a.m. & 5-9p.m. though (meaning you could never change the red man to green even if you pressed the button)

meanwhile in Europe... they've had buttons with all kinds of good designs since 1868...

Any button that can withstand a flying leg kick from a 15 year old is a good design in my book. Edit: oh wow didn't realise a little girl designed an actual kick me button. Awesome.

When I was a kid growing up in New Zealand, I used to hold my hand on the button just to feel it jolt when it turned green, completely unaware it served any purpose.

As an Aussie, I can confirm the PB/5 is 100% the best crosswalk button.

We don't have crosswalk buttons in my country, I actually didn't know they were a thing until now, and I just think it's funny that you have such an amazing system and take it for granted.

This is the weirdest way I've been proud to be an Australian.

I cannot believe that it took a child to convince people to put the kick feature in. It makes 100% sense.

Honestly, I had no idea that different countries had different designs for this. It’s just so intuitive and perfect that I can’t imagine using another design.

so in Germany these things click when red shows and beep when green shows. Although it doesn't look like it, we too have an arrow, and one added feature. So when you're at a crossing you don't always need the visual impaired signals to ring. So when you touch the touch button normally it will just work for seeing people. On the bottomside though is another button you can press. This will activate the audible signals. This button is also the arrow. there is a triangle extruded from the button's base plane. This triangle is as tall as the button is large but very narrow, thus forming an arrow which is very easy to make out which direction it's pointing.

I love how hard she dug that sound. Billies like: "This shit is fire"

Singapore has this exact model of crosswalk button and it even sounds exactly the same! Didn't know they originated from Australia. I'm glad we adopted such a neat tech!

We need more things like this around the world! When I was in Japan, I was really impressed that the crosswalks do a little chirp sound as it’s safe to walk. When I came back home to the US, I was a little sad that we didn’t have anything like this cuz it was quite useful! We gotta collectively start wanting these and then maybe all our countries that don’t have this kind of thing will know there’s actually a demand and reason for them!

I always use my knee to use crossing buttons and these are definitely the most comfortable ones I ever used!

So proud of Louis Challis' choice not to patent. Making the decision to not make a fat stack of cash to benefit people with sensory problems around the world. What a guy.

a funny unintended side effect is when the 'clicker' breaks it just goes absolutely wild lol. like those things can go *FAST*. Think 'through the fire and the flames' fast but faster.

Her reaction to the crossing sound has me weak 🤣🤣 I'm American living in Aus and I really dig it too lol

I live in the Philippines and first saw these in some of the urban cross walks about a decade ago. At the time I didn't make much of it, other than appreciating how huge and satisfying the button was. I even had a running joke with a friend that because of how overt and huge the button was, it wasn't probably hooked up to anything inside, and was more of a pedestrian placebo (infrastructure and civil works here fluctuate wildly in terms of reliability and integrity). Nice to learn about where the design came from.

1:52 he declined the patent so others can have it cheaper, WOW respect.

2:03 *Talking about how good Australian cross walks are Some random dude: Just walks across without pressing the button

These button are great piece of art, and the good thing is that they are implemented in smart way in Sydney by automating crossing during busy hours, giving priority to those who are on foot. Generally, buttons are good on streets, where there are few pedestrians, and the traffic speed is high, but on central streets, it is absolutely senseless to force someone push the button while there are always people gathered to cross the streets. Unfortunately, in most countries of the world the priority is still given to motorized vehicles, and you are forced to use buttons every time you need to cross it, no matter location and time, but luckily, this paradigm is slowly shifting towards pedestrian-oriented street design. A good example is Paris' recent traffic reform. Every city should follow their approach.

As a fellow Melbournian and lover of all things history I just wanna say awesome videos mate!! Only recently discovered your channel but have already binge watched all your videos because they're seriously entertaining 😊

As a student of design I never thought about this. So awesome. The best designs are the ones we don't realise are perfect just because we think that's the way things should be.

“The best thing to come out of Australia” Wifi: Am I a joke too you?

What’s fun about the PB/5 is that the clicking is often made using an electromagnet that actually *kicks* a metal flap. While it’s not as flexible as a speaker, it’s simple, cheap, and rather reliable. Most US crosswalks now use similar buttons (they’ve been mandated since the early 2000s), but use a speaker for the nose as the ADA requires a crosswalk signal be able to tell you which street your crossing.

I never thought this much about it. Having lived in Australia almost all my life and never had to use one anywhere else that I can recall, The walk sound is very useful for bikes too, as sometimes you are fixing pedals, handle bars, maybe even bell position etc.

We have the PB/5s in Singapore and I've always thought they sounded awesome. Thanks Australia!

We use similar buttons in New Zealand, but there is one important difference with their implementation. In Australia, the man flashes red and then stays red, while in New Zealand, the man turns off after a short delay and only lights up again when the button is pressed. This gives a visual signal that someone has already pressed the button. This is handy because we don't need to rush to the next intersection to trigger the crossing if we know someone has already done it. The only negative with this design is the buttons are plastic and won't take much abuse. When they break, you're left with a small inner stem that requires a finger to press.

It’s so cool to view your country through the eyes of a tourist. I would have assumed that everyone had these buttons 😂

We have these in Dublin Ireland too, during covid some of them have been updated to include a contactless sensor that you wave your hand infront of to activate it without needing to touch the button. A nice update, really does tick all the boxes

They’re also an export! I was travelling in Dublin, Ireland and was blown away to find the exact, exact, exact same PB/5 buttons at their pedestrian crossings! My British friends couldnt quite understand why I was so excited about it

The way billie describes how she found the button sound in Sydney is so good

The same button is used in Dublin (and possibly other places in Ireland) and a lot of them have been outfitted with touchless buttons during Covid-19. One “problem” with the sound is that a lot of inattentive people (e.g looking at their phone) use the “pew” to start crossing, even if it’s only the light in the other direction that went green. Probably a compounding effect is that most pedestrian crosses turn green in both directions at the same time. I always thought making the sound come from across the street, in the direction of the cross, but I didn’t consider noise pollution.

That sound is one of those things that immediately brings back memories to my Italian brain from when I was living in Straya and it feels so good. Too bad there’s no traffic lights in the countryside, like some intersections in Margaret River could really use some of those

We have them in Nz, didn't realize that they were so good.

Yoo my favourite thing about the design is there’s a slight flaw, in that they condition people to walk when they hear the sound, so if two are next to each other and you hear the sound, you walk forward even tho the lights red.

This model is also used in Ireland - interested to know where else they might be used

Crosswalks near me: - Tactile buttons in direction of cross - Button vibrates when it is time to cross - beeping when you should wait or not start crossing - Voice line "[Street name] - walk sign is on to cross" (repeats until continue crossing) - Holding button: voice line "Wait to cross [Street name] at [cross street]" - once button is pressed, the led is illuminated. it will speak "Wait"

I remember travelling in Hawaii with my partner and every time we crossed the road it was so eerily quiet so it just became a thing that i would make the noise myself whenever we had to cross.

Wow - I had no idea this is an Aussie thing - really proud. And all respect to Louis Challis for passing up a patent.

The kicking the button I think is a universal thing. Here in the US I’ve used two types of crosswalk button, one (which has none of these features) is just a convex button that you can really nail with anything from your head to your foot and not hurt it. The new ones I don’t like, which have the tactile arrows and sounds but you’ve got to push them pretty hard to get them to activate, and they’re set into a little pocket so you can’t kick them.

Thanks for sharing this story Julian. I love the simplicity and robustness of this device and that it’s an Australian design. Interestingly, I travelled in Japan in 2010, to Kyoto and I don’t remember the look of the crossing button, but the sound which was similar, but higher pitched stayed with me for some time after I left.

I use these regularly here in Adelaide, South Australia. Never realised the significance of them -- though I was aware many places don't have the audible sound. As someone that is perfectly able, I still use the sound. If I'm speaking to someone else and not watching the light, I still know exactly when it's green.

We rely so heavily on the auditory cue! You’ll see people on their phones waiting and stagger forward a little before looking up to see if it’s actually their light that changed!

I had a pedestrian crossing down the street from my home which was on a quiet little road off a main street. During the day the ambient noise drowned out the crossing beepers but, at night, during a still, windless and low traffic night these sounds still into your brain. Especially when they are set to repeat in a traffic signal cycle. I kid you not...I thought of a few ways to destroy these things while lying in bed hearing the cycle repeating hundreds of times. I do believe they are an amazingly clever des8gn and I remember when they were initially rolled out. There were some models which included a small panel on the arrow for a slight electric pulse to alert the blind and deaf of the change of signal. I used to love feeling that pulsing. Super cool!!

I didn’t even realise there was a sound, it always just blended in with the bustling of cars and other surrounding noises that I never paid attention to it, but now I realise that I subconsciously always listened to the sound and never looked at the traffic lights. Even before covid, my mother would always keep reminding me to never directly touch the button and use her car keys or something. I guess I take these things for granted, but ty Australia

You don’t have to use your hands to push the button. It’s so light weight and large that I’ve used my elbow, my knee, my butt and sometimes my head just to see if it was possible.

When I first arrived in Hawaii I was walking around I kept missing the crossing cue? Because there was none. I spent a lot of time wondering how vision impaired people would survive. Soon I saw all vision impaired people needed a carer just to get around. They also have no blind man bumps for stairs or footpath exits. I never would have imagined something like that could go overlooked in a first world country. But America does not have these services

we have a similar system on swedish crosswalks. they all make a slow clicking sound when light is red, fast when light is green and staggered fast when light is blinking (essentially fast click whilst the signal is lit and silent when the light is off). I don't know if there is a microphone to adjust according to street noise but I have always heard the clicking sound as the same level over background so I don't know if it is just on a timer or using a microphone but it does change how loud it is. the arrow on our cross walk buttons are on the top of the button assembly and it is tactile but we have some sort of touch button instead of a nice physical button. shurely does its job but not as satisfying. and from what I know isn't the button assembly vibrating either.

We have those in Germany, too. They make clicky sounds, they vibrate and they have a small display which tells you, that you "pressed" the button correctly. Pressing isn't the right word though. Our crosswalk buttons have sensors that detect your hand when you're close enough to it. Sadly, not many Germans know about those sensors and smash these things either way.

The original sound is from NSW and has more “boop” audio on both red light and green light. They were first seen around Burwood, Sydney near the NSW Blind Society. No pun intended.

Me and my friends used to wander around at the early mornings during holidays in school, and there's an amazing ambience to a foggy, totally abandoned intersection at 3am with the regular bips echoing down the street.

We have these in Ireland as well, specifically the ones at 3:55, even made it into a Versatile song as well

I'm from Canada and we have cross walks with this type of technology. But I really love Australian culture and it's really awesome to hear what they invented :) I'm proud of you Australia

“One of the best design things to ever come out of Australia (a pedestrian button)” Ahhh yes, one of our greatest successes in this country is to provide an aid for people to cross a road

It seems strange to think that the everyday things we take for granted were actually developed with much thought involved. You definitely bring new meaning to the things we take for granted.

I hear you .. and I agree (now you've pointed it out) that it's an amazing bit of hardware and sound design. However, in 1982 I was impressed with Japans sound system because they used bird twitter and it was different for each crossing at a cross road. It meant that (and this happens in Melbourne) you couldn't mess up which light was green, yours - with starling song, or theirs with robin tweets. I do get caught stepping off on the wrong cross walk, while listening for the green light.

Some of the intersections around there have sensors so you don't have to press at all. You just approach, and a countdown will start on the light telling you how long it is until you can cross. Doesn't help visually impaired people tell how long to wait of course, but it would help anyone unable to push the button for whatever reason see that their presence has been registered. They do also make a clicky sound here, but not the same one, and I don't know whether it's adjusted based on ambient sound. I do know I've never been unable to hear them though, but my city isn't very noisy, so it may just be that it's not necessary over here. We don't have the tactile arrows and vibrations, I believe... so it's still possible to make improvements. Overall they're not bad though.

The unbelievable feeling of nostalgia when I was in Dublin and found the button was exactly the same as the ones from home in Brisbane was brilliant

I remember being in New Zealand and noticed some of the crosswalks had a slightly different walk jingle for the East-West crossing to the North-South crossing. Thought it was a neat feature.

Our crosswalk buttons have tactile markers that tell not only the direction of the crossing, but the general layout of the road you're crossing: how many lanes going in what directions, if there are bike lanes, whether there's a median strip, etc. And supposedly they have a secret button on the underside that causes the light to stay green longer, for people with mobility issues (though I've never actually checked if this is true). Other than that, they're pretty shit though. They often have some kind of pressure sensor or capacitive sensor instead of a button, and it's often not clear where exactly you're supposed to be pressing.

My favourite Aussie pedestrian crossing cross over was that job search ad with the guy making the sounds with the sticks remotely ☺️

This is interested as I've never left Victoria so I kind of always took the crossing buttons for granted, no idea it was a marvel in design.

It's a simple mechanical design. Essentially a relay that turns on and off at a certain frequency. We investigated how it works at an electromechanical course at uni. Fascinating how simple it is.

An an Aussie, it was SO NICE to see inner Melbourne on YT. Also, can I just say that the crossing sounds sound nice? Like, as someone who can be sensitive to sounds, these feel good

Most countries I've visited have visual, audio and tactile feedback on their pedestrian crossings.

EDIT: I stand corrected, apparently not all Melbourne ones CLACK, some BIP too. But I what I can say with certainty is that I have never come across a clacker in Sydney, only bippers. The Sydney and Melbourne PB/5 sounds are distinctly different, the former beeps and the latter just clicks. Also the Sydney buttons do not have the little red/green light on the button itself.

Did you know that these buttons have the earliest form of AI embedded... if you press it repeatedly, the unit will sense you are in a hurry, and change the lights quickly.... ;) (at least that's what I tell myself!)

just subscribed, its awesome to see australia getting some attention 🇦🇺

The clicking sound certainly seems better than the bleepers used where i live (which aren’t always installed due to proximity of other crossings) And there are a few bad things i can say about pedestrian crossings where i live, for a start, the pedestrian lights are sometimes part of the button box (and the ones of this type have overhead sensors to detect when there is someone waiting, but you still have to push the button to activate it, the sensor is actually to CANCEL the request if you walk away or cross on red, and those sensors are awful, if you stand still it doesn’t detect you, and cancels the request)

Finland has sorted almost everything else out, design wise...but their traffic crossing sounds are inconsistent between districts and even between crossings. The PB/5 is the one thing we have on them in the world of design.

We have these in New Zealand too. Never thought much of them but I guess they are pretty neat

They have ones that are touch free in front of the royal children’s hospital, haven’t seen them anywhere else but its so cool!! you just wave your hand past it and it even lights up

Great video! I thought I knew a lot about the design but I still learned a great deal.

As an Australian I never realised how good the pedestrian crossing buttons are. Like the sound isn't annoying and is actually helpful. Visually it's fine. It's become a staple of commuting anywhere. And most impressive, it can handle dozens of flying kicks from teenagers everyday.

There’s a set of lights near my friend’s house which don’t make a sound and I never feel comfortable crossing the road there even when I know it’s green.

That was way more awesome than I expected - thanks

Great video mate. Keep up the good work.

Learnt something here. I assumed these buttons were one of those international standards. Now, if I ever need a theme to travel the world with it'll be discovering new pedestrian button designs.

I was 14yo kid when I first heard the sound, on his first international trip to Sydney with my mom visiting my sister there. I’m gonna cry now 😢

This design is common across Dublin City and I’m quite a fan of it too. In the suburbs a different design is used which features, in addition to the big arrow, a tactile map of the road you’re crossing including your location and direction, the lanes of the road you’re crossing, and locations of where vehicles might be waiting. This is something I feel could really improve the design of the button featured in this video.

Top video liked it heaps keep it up another great Australian you tube channel

In Germany, there are 2 buttons: 1 underneath for vision impaired to press so that the sound turns on otherwise there is normally no sound.

They also use these in NZ. Can’t deny the Aussies outdid us on this one

I'm an Australian. I have never, ever realised that they were that intricate with measuring the ambient noise.

Very awesome and wholesome stuff. Subscribed!