Can temporary traffic lights record your vehicle?

Cisco001

Is there any road workers ahead doing some construction works?

They could hold everyone up to 10 mins to do some quick road repairs.

ontheroad1970

user1977 said:

Ant555 said:

Although I cant find a link to this right now, I read somewhere that at temporary traffic lights, if you were on red for 5 minutes,  you reasonably believe that they are faulty and it is safe to proceed then you can go through.

As I said, I cant find the relevant link though.

I'm reasonably certain there's no such legal provision, though it might be a rule of thumb about whether you're likely to be ticketed for it. But as I said above, many (probably most) temporary lights don't have a relevant temporary traffic regulation order, in which case ignoring them isn't itself an offence anyway (though still possible to be prosecuted for careless etc driving).

If it has gone beyond a certain time limit, then a decision may be made  that it is not in the public interest to prosecute since a reasonable person (the often quoted "man on the number 10 bus") would think that after a certain amount of time it would be reasonable to cautiously proceed.  One of the tests for prosecution is if it is in the public interest to proceed.

Aretnap

The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions (the law that specifies what road signs have to look like) specifies that traffic lights must display lights in the order red, red+amber, green, amber. So if they don't display them in that order but just display red permanently/indefinitely there's an argument that they don't comply with the TSRGD and therefore don't have any legal force.

By this argument though its the fact that the lights are broken that makes it legal to proceed - not the fact that you've waited for any particular length of time. You could in theory drive straight past a light that was stuck in red without stopping at all - though in practice of course you couldn't know it was stuck without waiting a reasonable time to see if it changed. 

BOWFER

Cisco001 said:

Is there any road workers ahead doing some construction works?

They could hold everyone up to 10 mins to do some quick road repairs.

Seriously?
How come everyone else has taken it as read that the OP isn't ignoring reds where he doesn't have a clean line of sight?

I had the same sort of response when I mentioned I was ignoring some reds on my drive to work during lockdown on here.
There's always someone will suggest some fanciful scenario and not just take it that I'm not a nutter and can clearly see it's safe to go.

user1977

Cisco001 said:

Is there any road workers ahead doing some construction works?

They could hold everyone up to 10 mins to do some quick road repairs.

Surely they wouldn't be daft enough not to anticipate drivers interpreting the red light as being "stuck"? They would stop the traffic using less ambiguous means e.g. a mate with a stop/go board or a suitably-inserted vehicle.

scrappy_returns

BOWFER said:

Cisco001 said:

Is there any road workers ahead doing some construction works?

They could hold everyone up to 10 mins to do some quick road repairs.

Seriously?
How come everyone else has taken it as read that the OP isn't ignoring reds where he doesn't have a clean line of sight?

I had the same sort of response when I mentioned I was ignoring some reds on my drive to work during lockdown on here.
There's always someone will suggest some fanciful scenario and not just take it that I'm not a nutter and can clearly see it's safe to go.

I remember when a HATO (dating when this happened) thought that about a road I had closed. He didnt see the winch wire across the road as it was dark. Felt it though. Made a real mess of the the front of his discovery.

BOWFER

scrappy_returns said:

I remember when a HATO (dating when this happened) thought that about a road I had closed. He didnt see the winch wire across the road as it was dark. Felt it though. Made a real mess of the the front of his discovery.

How does someone ignoring a 'road closed' sign equate to what's being talked about here?

scrappy_returns

BOWFER said:

scrappy_returns said:

I remember when a HATO (dating when this happened) thought that about a road I had closed. He didnt see the winch wire across the road as it was dark. Felt it though. Made a real mess of the the front of his discovery.

How does someone ignoring a 'road closed' sign equate to what's being talked about here?

Why are you assuming there was a road closed sign? There wasn't.
What you are talking about is your ability to see "clearly" that it was safe to proceed. I'm talking about a HATO that also thought they could "clearly" see it was safe to proceed. However it wasnt the case.

BOWFER

scrappy_returns said:

BOWFER said:

scrappy_returns said:

I remember when a HATO (dating when this happened) thought that about a road I had closed. He didnt see the winch wire across the road as it was dark. Felt it though. Made a real mess of the the front of his discovery.

How does someone ignoring a 'road closed' sign equate to what's being talked about here?

Why are you assuming there was a road closed sign? There wasn't.
What you are talking about is your ability to see "clearly" that it was safe to proceed. I'm talking about a HATO that also thought they could "clearly" see it was safe to proceed. However it wasnt the case.

Maybe if you cluld explain what a HATO is I'll be able to make sense of this nonsense....
Imagine me thinking there would be a road closed sign on a closed road, how silly of me....

Aretnap

BOWFER said:

scrappy_returns said:

BOWFER said:

scrappy_returns said:

I remember when a HATO (dating when this happened) thought that about a road I had closed. He didnt see the winch wire across the road as it was dark. Felt it though. Made a real mess of the the front of his discovery.

How does someone ignoring a 'road closed' sign equate to what's being talked about here?

Why are you assuming there was a road closed sign? There wasn't.
What you are talking about is your ability to see "clearly" that it was safe to proceed. I'm talking about a HATO that also thought they could "clearly" see it was safe to proceed. However it wasnt the case.

Maybe if you cluld explain what a HATO is I'll be able to make sense of this nonsense....
Imagine me thinking there would be a road closed sign on a closed road, how silly of me....

HATO = Highways Agency Traffic Officer

The point of the story is a little lost on me as well, but as far as I can tell it's that someone somewhere once failed to spot a hazard in the road and had an accident. And this proves that you cannot possibly look for hazards yourself and judge whether it is safe to proceed, and if you even think about proceeding slowly and with caution you will end up running over a crowd of nuns and kittens. Or something.