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I recently noticed a sign on the road that read,
"Pelican crossing ahead".
This is the first time I've seen this sign near a pedestrian crossing.
From the comments, I understood that
"Pelican crossings are now being transformed to Puffin crossings in the United Kingdom.".
But Pelican crossings are safer than Zebra crossing (report below)

12 Feb 2024 — An online petition has now been organised after a pedestrian was hit by a car in Windemere Drive near Sainsbury's. https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/24108869.windermere-drive-crash-pelican-crossing-calls-months-ago/

When I searched the dictionary I found this term is mainly used in the UK

https://www.collinsdictionary.com British English: pelican crossing /ˈpɛlɪkən ˈkrɒsɪŋ/ NOUN.
A pelican crossing is a place where pedestrians can cross a busy road. They press a button at the side of the road, which operates traffic lights to stop the traffic. American English: crosswalk /ˈkrɔswɔk/

What is the difference between a Zebra, Pelican and Puffin crossing?
Among the three, which is the safest?

Edit 1.
Pelican crossings have been recently installed in various Indian states, however they have not proven successful because pedestrians do not know how to use them.

alamy.com enter image description here

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3 Answers 3

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Just in case it's not clear, zebra crossing is likely to be UK English rather than US as the OP noted. It's named after the painted white stripes in the road. I've not heard pelican crossing in the sense of a type of human pedestrian crossing.

I didn't grow up in the US, so I've actually heard zebra crossing. In the US, we typically say crosswalk or marked crosswalk, and we probably would confused zebra or pelican crossing for migratory animal crossings. Most Americans would ask where the zebras are, although we do at least have pelicans in some parts of the US.

Here's a page on signage used for a number of migratory animals on US roads. Needless to say, migratory animals don't know that humans would typically cross exactly at the sign and they aren't familiar with our traffic customs. Thus, these aren't controlled intersections. They warn drivers to be careful in the entire area.

I raise this point because the pictures in the question are likely to be for actual animals, unless they're parody signs.

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  • I raise this point because the pictures in the question are likely to be for actual animals. These signs are for sale Amazon website : Brand: M---- Pelican Crossing Warning Sign Pelican Sign - For Home Farmhouse Yard Road Quality Metal Sign 12x12 Inches
    – James Mathai
    Commented Aug 1 at 15:43
  • @JamesMathai It's highly unlikely, seeing as geese and pelicans can fly. Pelicans are also waterbirds, it's also unlikely that they need to cross any road to reach their favourite body of water.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 1 at 16:42
  • Ducks and geese do walk. I've never seen a pelican.
    – Weiwen Ng
    Commented Aug 1 at 22:46
  • I've seen pet geese and ducks with chicks walking on land. Geese, because to their size, require great effort to fly. Geese are always looking for food on the ground. Gerald Durrell had a pet pelican on Corfu Island.
    – James Mathai
    Commented Aug 2 at 1:00
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The name pelican crossing is derived from PELICON, ‘a portmanteau of pedestrian light controlled’.

Here we see its main difference from the zebra crossing: it is light-controlled.

In the United Kingdom, the pelican crossing was the first definitive light-controlled crossing for pedestrians, introduced in 1969 ... Previously only zebra crossings had been used, which have warning signals (Belisha beacons), but no control signals. [emphasis added]

More details are in Wikipedia.

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  • I have edited the question. You are right, we too had only zebra crossings in our country until now. I haven't witnessed a "puffin crossing" yet.
    – James Mathai
    Commented Aug 1 at 13:37
  • But not with pictures like that.,
    – Lambie
    Commented Aug 1 at 15:31
  • I'm glad to see someone flagged up the subtle difference (probably unknown even to most Brits, let alone Americans and others) between zebra crossings and pelican crossings. But even though the derivation is from controlled, it's always spelled pelican crossing. The full OED definition (9) is: 1966– [Punningly after the more formal name pedestrian light controlled (crossing).] More fully pelican crossing. In the U.K.: a pedestrian crossing having traffic lights activated by pedestrians.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Aug 1 at 16:33
  • Thanks, @FumbleFingers. I’ve included pelican crossing in my first line for completeness of the naming history.
    – Seowjooheng Singapore
    Commented Aug 1 at 20:46
  • Pelican crossings have apparently been replaced by Puffin (Pedestrian User-Friendly...) crossings, so it's not really "language" any more - just catchy (but ephemeral) marketing campaigns.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Aug 2 at 0:39
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There are many kinds of crossings. Among the most popular are:

  • Zebra (black and white stripes) made famous outside Britain by "Abbey Road"
    Typically at crossings without lights, but becoming more generally used at all types of crossings (retains visibility when paint wears).

  • Pelican (PELICON): PEdestrian LIght CONtrol
    Pedestrians press a button to give traffic a red light.

  • Puffin: (PUFIN): Pedestrian User-Friendly INtelligent
    Same as Pelican, but the "walk" signal is with the button, not only on the other side of the road.
    It also has motion detectors to prolong the light for slow pedestrians.

  • Toucan (2 CAN): Two Can
    A double crossing, half for pedestrians and half for bicycles.

  • Pegasus: Equestrian
    Like a Pelican or Puffin, but with an extra button higher up so horse riders can press it without dismounting.

  • Cow (spots rather than stripes)
    Marks a more highly visible place that cattle should use to cross the road.

  • Scramble corners
    An intersection where traffic signals are all red at the same time, allowing pedestrians to cross in all directions, including diagonally.

Note that while these names are used to describe various types of road crossings they are not used on traffic signs.

Traffic signs that display explicitly named crossings are an entirely different thing, and one should not confuse the significance.

For instance, "Deer crossing, next 3 km" doesn't indicate a special type of designated crossing, but is a warning that for the next 3 km wild deer might suddenly appear out of nowhere.
(And heed that warning, each year in the USA, about 1 person is killed by bears, 5 by snakes, and hundreds by deer.)

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  • +1 Some of the names are unfamiliar, so it is good information to those planning a visit to UK. Which is safest - Pelican or Puffin ?
    – James Mathai
    Commented Aug 8 at 4:54
  • @JamesMathai. Britain is converting Pelican to Puffin. Having the signal with the button makes it more obvious to the pedestrian, and the "intelligent" part allows some of us old fogeys to make it across before the signal changes.
    – Ray Butterworth
    Commented Aug 8 at 12:44
  • For the record, I don’t think zebra crossings were made famous outside Britain by Abbey Road – they were already the default way of marking pedestrian crossings in many countries before Abbey Road came out (in fact, many foreigners are puzzled and somewhat wary of the lack of zebra stripes on so many pedestrian crossings in the UK).
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Aug 20 at 10:25
  • @JanusBahsJacquet, I certainly never saw them here in Canada, and when I noticed them in foreign films the first reaction was that it was a "Beatles crossing". They didn't even become standard in Toronto until 2006.
    – Ray Butterworth
    Commented Aug 20 at 14:11

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