When the lights turn to amber .............

harveybobbles

East Lancs is no fun these days. It's littered with traffic lights which, no matter what time of day you get to them, are always on red.

I've tried driving at different speeds down there to see if I can complete a few sections on green lights.

jaydeeuk1

Scooby_Doo. wrote: »

Are you one of the 23% in the ahole group then?

Oi. Thats the hire / company car group I'll have you know. Although ahole is probably a fair description.

jase1

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

What's the best excuse for breaking the law should be the original query

I've seen a near-miss where someone decided to stop dead when the light went to amber virtually as he was passing it. Stopped well over the line. The guy behind had a brown-trouser moment...

Yes, yes, I know he should be able to stop at all times, blah blah blah, but this "I'm going to obey the law and safety be damned" attitude does no-one any favours at all.

The proper answer to this question is "use your common sense". If there is no-one ahead of you, you're well under the limit and you pass the light just as it turns amber, accelerating to the speed limit may well, in some cases, be the most appropriate course of action.

If you are so close that you need to perform something an emergency stop to come to rest before (***NOT*** slightly over) the line then you don't have time to check behind you and therefore most likely should continue. Unfortunately there are a lot of divvies about who panic and hit the anchor.

cyclonebri1

But unfortunately there's always the idiot who wants to stretch it by 1 more car sneaking through, you can see it everyday at every set of lights in the country.;)

Probably one of the most poinient rules in the book is to always take that last look each way even when the lights are in your favour, asd some people actually genuinely miss red lights:eek::eek::eek:

I didn't realise some peoples perception of the colours untill I was sat in the car one day with a mate and I mentioned the clour change since new led traffic lights were introduced, the fact that both old and new types showed bright blue to him was rather disconcerting, glad I was driving;)

And he is only considered mildly colour blind. H'mm

Harry_Flashman

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

I didn't realise some peoples perception of the colours untill I was sat in the car one day with a mate and I mentioned the clour change since new led traffic lights were introduced, the fact that both old and new types showed bright blue to him was rather disconcerting, glad I was driving;)

And he is only considered mildly colour blind. H'mm

But that's why there's a recognised sequence to the lights though ain't it? To deal with colour blnd folk?

King_Nothing

Depends how fast I'm going, how far I'm away from it, and if anything is behind me.

It's frightening the amount of times I've went through lights that I thought was cutting close only to be followed by the car that was behind me! :O

BillTrac

Mind you, there's a set of traffic lights in Portsmouth (junction of Kingston Road and New Road for people familiar with area) where the lights can change to green for the Kingston Road traffic to move..and vehicles will STILL be coming out of New Road:eek: The number of near misses I have seen. If they put a traffic light camera there it would pay for a whole new police force I reckon.

Don't think they know what amber means at all

cyclonebri1

Harry_Flashman wrote: »

But that's why there's a recognised sequence to the lights though ain't it? To deal with colour blnd folk?

Is it?? tell that to the bloke that's just been hit by someone wearing green and red dayglo stides that he sees as beige:D:D

Yeah ok top to bottom and vicky verka, I can see fine but I haven'a clue if what I said is true, get my drift

DCFC79

If im not far form the light and they have just chnaged then yes i do carry on going

alastairq

amber means, room for another artic...or .. room for 3 more late buses....


when I was driving buses [proper ones, not these new plastic fantastics]...there were real issues with 'amber' lights......especially with the advent of mobile phones!

If the driver had annoyed a passenger [probably because they wouldn't let them on for half fare?}....and that passenger was sat at the back of the bus.....an amber light when the front was close to the 'stop' line meant, that passenger seeing a red light when the rear of the bus crossed the line.

Guess who they were straight on the phone to?

yup, bus company managers were always getting calls complaining about drivers who 'jumped red lights'....

Difficult one to argue against....since everybody else was right, except the driver!

So I would be slowing approaching a green light....especially if it had been green for a wee while.....so that, if amber appeared I could stop [very] comfortably.