Traffic Lights

anotheruser

spacey2012 wrote: »

Those that crawl towards the next set thinking they are "timing it" so only 3 cars at tops get through.
You want to make them write down 500 times.
There is a loop in the road you thick nugget at the next set that wont change until you drive over it, you have timed nothing"

A loop in the road or cameras/sensors aren't that common.
The majority of lights are at junctions where they are timed on a pattern.

I don't crawl up to lights but I certainly don't speed up to them and have to emergency brake to stop in time.

In fact the majority of the time I am already in neutral. Yes, harp on about "not in control" but I can stop, which is good enough. Yes, I can't accelerate away but if I was in gear, it would be the wrong gear making the "accelerate away" argument pretty much null and void.

WTFH

neilmcl wrote: »

Absolutely not in my experience! The start/stop on my car is practically instantaneous.

As it is in mine, but when I've driven BMW 1 series recently, I've found the stop/start to be far slower than other euro brands that I've driven (or own)

GwylimT

If you're only checking mirrors before pulling off when the amber light is on then you have no idea what is around you by the time green comes on, you check and then pull of straight away, you don't check and wait.

googler

scotsbob wrote: »

In a place like Italy, or better still Morocco, if you are not away sharpish there is a barrage of horns behind you to wake you up.

Definition of a microsecond - that period between the light in front of you turning green and the New York cab driver behind you leaning on his horn.

Maestro.

Lum wrote: »

I'm ok with people being a bit slow, my pet peeve at the moment is this set of lights

During the day it has a right turn filter arrow, and a solid green circle for straight ahead, not a straight ahead arrow.

People will sit there behind the stop line when the solid green circle is lit up, and wait for the filter.

At night the filter is deactivated, so they then sit waiting for it anyway, then it goes straight to red. On the next cycle they'll pull forward barely enough to get the rear of their car over the stop line when you can get three cars in that junction. That's two cycles of the lights wasted thanks to these nuggets. You can see by the wear on the road that nobody bothers to make efficient use of the space.

Of course, it's a right turn into a Tesco, so not like it's an unused little side road with hardly any traffic.

Wonder if it's legit to just assume they're broken down and go around them?

Traffic lights and (lack of) road markings in this country are so confusing on some junctions I don't blame people for being confused.

Bongles

portly1 wrote: »

Some junctions have two lanes at the lights and merge into one after the lights. If some idiot behind hasn't got any patience I tend to tuck myself (and him behind me) behind all of the traffic coming up on the other lane - can easily see a dozen cars go past and merge in front of me.

portly1 wrote: »

Not if I am in the nearside of the two lanes and there is a stream of cars in the outside lane - all wanting to do battle to be first in the one and only lane after the lights! I would wait patiently until the offside lane has cleared then tuck myself with the idiot behind me to the end of the traffic queue.

This doesn't seem to make any sense. You would sit behind the stop line, not moving, on a green light, while a dozen cars drove past you in lane 2 - what on earth for???!!! How often to you find your light changes back to red before you've moved?

Have you got a phobia of merging in moving traffic? Or is it specifically merging whilst also trying to manage what you expect will be an impatient driver immediately behind that you're not comfortable with? Either way, while it's never a good idea to drive yourself into a situation you're not sure you can handle, your solution seems a little extreme.

alastairq

I totally get this, what they also don't realise is that the filter lane light is triggered by the induction loop just past the stop line. So even in heavy traffic is they don't pull past the line, the lights will not change in their favour.

Didn't chose the above quote to be specific......before I get challenged, but........

if one were undergoing a Driving Test....and one failed to do the above, ie move forwards to the proper position at a filter light, then [probably after one cycle of the lights] one would receive a serious fault.

It is amazing really how many people out there, 'driving' simply ..do not know!

The 'slow responses' at light are also replicated under other traffic situations...for example, ever notice how long it takes for a small queue of cars to et moving again, once brought to a halt, or near halt, by someone turning off, etc?

I can have some sympathy for tractor drivers not 'pulling over' to let traffic pass...the number of times recently I have witnessed tractor drivers considerately pulling over for that reason.....only to watch the queue of cars simply chug past, still doing the same speed as the tractor was!

For several minutes!

Why is it, when people eventually overtake, do they not shove off and disappear rapidly?

Why do they slow down and hang around in front of me?

Why is it, even in my disreputable and thoroughly hateful Fiesta, when a slow vehicle in front of me gets out of the way[as they do].....and I shoot off up to what I consider a reasonable speed...the queue of vehicles that were behind me beforehand, simply disappear entirely from view? Leaving me out front all on my own?

And I don't exceed limits [for professional reasons]....

Do Fiestas leave an impenetrable shock wave behind them when they pootle off into the sunset?

[And, when eventually, after a long time, the traffic that was behind, catches up, know they've been seriously flouting all the 30mph limits I've passed through in the meantime.....]

Is it all because, as an auld farht, I struggle to text at any time, let alone behind the wheel?

facade

alastairq wrote: »

Is it all because, as an auld farht, I struggle to text at any time, let alone behind the wheel?

More likely you, like me, come from The Olden Days, when roads were made for cars, and we simply got on with the business of getting to where we needed to be with the minimum of fuss and delay.


Talking of traffic lights, in The Olden Days a series of lights, e.g. on a ring road would be timed so that if you were stopped at a set, then started off smartly, sticking to the speed limit, you would simply sail through the rest on green. Nowadays, they are set up so you wait ages, accelerate away leaving black rubber, howl to the next set at exactly the speed limit, only to see them change to red as you arrive. You then spend the 5 minutes wait thinking "If I'd got to 50, not 40 I could have made it......."

portly1

Bongles wrote: »

This doesn't seem to make any sense. You would sit behind the stop line, not moving, on a green light, while a dozen cars drove past you in lane 2 - what on earth for???!!! How often to you find your light changes back to red before you've moved?

Have you got a phobia of merging in moving traffic? Or is it specifically merging whilst also trying to manage what you expect will be an impatient driver immediately behind that you're not comfortable with? Either way, while it's never a good idea to drive yourself into a situation you're not sure you can handle, your solution seems a little extreme.

No of course I would move off on green. If an idiot was behind me I would be waiting to merge with the other traffic coming up on my offside. If that meant that I had to sit in the middle of the junction until the last car passed on my right so that I could tuck in behind him I would, leaving the guy behind either still stuck behind me (and now at the end of a long queue of traffic) or put him in the position of being in the middle of the road after the lights had turned red and traffic was starting to come from another direction (hopefully there would be a 'yellow box' and a bobby watching him blocking traffic from elsewhere!

Me, what did I do wrong - it just wasn't safe for two cars side by side to battle for one lane - so I waited until everyone behind me had passed by.

neilmcl

WTFH wrote: »

As it is in mine, but when I've driven BMW 1 series recently, I've found the stop/start to be far slower than other euro brands that I've driven (or own)

Again, not in my experience.