In another post you guys were talk about New Jersey having the best signals because us near side supplement traffic signals. One of you guys talk about having trouble seeing the overhead traffic signals in flordia. Well, flordia Adapts program is finishing up a study on postmount traffic signals. I do not know when this standard will added Flordia's Mutcd.
I always dislikes the single diagonal wire setups in Florida because the heads were too close to the stop bar. I've seen that they are replacing these assemblies with four mast arm setups, which will fix the problem.
In Denton Tx, and to a certain extent Flower Mound Tx, they are putting up alot more supplemental heads than they used to.
In Denton, there are alot of older assemblies that are horribly inadaquate. No pedestrian signals even in high pedestrian areas (esp around UNT), no protected left turn where needed (Hickory/Bell), and no supplemental heads for curved approaches(SB Bell at Prairie)
Usually, the wire-mounted signals aren't a problem, unless the intersection is very "compact", for lack of a better word. Mostly, the mast arms do away with this problem, but but not always. If the cross walks are wide enough, and there's enough room, usually you can always see the signals if you're the first car at the stop line. Typically, the 6x6-lane intersection doesn't have this problem, but some 4x4-lane intersections do.
It also depends on the type of car you drive; if the windshield has a very narrow angle of attack on a car, you might not see some signals so easily. Usually, this isn't a problem in an SUV, or on other boxy-designs of vehicles, but my old Lexus used to block out signals occasionally, but never to the point where stopping a few feet further back didn't solve the problem...someone in a low-slung car such as a Lotus Esprit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1988_Lotus_Esprit_Turbo_US_rr.JPG) might really have trouble, though.
I think supplemental side-mounted signals would really be beneficial at intersections with high volumes of truck traffic. If you are stuck behind a semi a lot of times you can't see the overhead signal heads, so a side-mounted signal either at the height of the other signals or lower would be nice.
On Orange Blossom Trail and Central Florida Parkway in Orange County, FL there is a side mounted signal head because the dumbass who designed the signal assembly there put the signal heads on the wrong side of the intersection! Instead of across the way on the far side of the intersection, it is on the near side. Thus, causing the stop bar to have to be 50 feet from the intersection and it was needed so the first car in line can look to the right and see the orientation of the signal without having to lean forward and look up.
Then you have now a new signal further on south at Stabler Drive that has now three straight through signal heads with backplates all around. Usually, in Florida backplates are only used on East and West roadways, but here the contractor set them on the North and South OBT.
The actual worst signal assembly are those awful green truss assemblies in the form of a box on the red light district of Orange Blossom Trail where the near side truss assembly blocks the view of the signal heads until you pass within a few hundred feet of the signal unless the light is green. Then on FL 535 at the I-4 Interchange near Disney you have signal heads behind the I-4 overpass, that could use side mounted heads here, that do not. With the many tourists that travel here, you wonder why accidents have not yet happened because of this.