Dial "P" for Permissive... or was that Protected?

Protected Phase: typically shown with a separate traffic signal head that has a left-turn arrow to allow left turn movements to be separated from the thru movements. Hence, a protected phase will have 2 phases, a phases for the left turn movements and a phase for the thru movements. Since it has 2 phases, you can most definitely expect additional loss time at the intersection.

Permissive Phase: typically shown with a green ball on all the traffic signal heads. Contrary to the protective phase, the permissive phase requires the left turn movements to yield to oncoming thru traffic. A permissive phase will only have 1 phase and therefore, obviously less loss time than a protected phase.

Look, you cannot specify "P" on the field work notes to denote a signal phase as being Permissive or Protected. It defeats the purpose of doing the field work to survey the existing conditions. Have you any idea how long it takes for me to go back to view google earth or some other mapping software to check if the "P" you wrote means Protected or Permissive?! My intersections will BLOW UP if I set heavy left turn movements to be Permissive (while conflicting with heavy oncoming thru movements, of course) because you were too lazy to put the additional "R" to denote the actual Protected phase surveyed!! Confound it man, you're killing me!

So please remember, "P" for Permissive, "PR" for Protected and "PU" for your survey notes!