Red Lights at Junctions.

You need to look further up the road and time the light. If you know it will go red then time your arrival at the light for when you expect it to turn green and keep rolling. Remember you are not going to that intersection but beyond it, so there is no reward in being the first to it. Be the last to the light but be rolling when it changes.

I "stop" at less red lights now I drive a Prius but I have always tried to judge the change of lights anyway, but more so now.

Hitting the stop line as the light goes green at 5mph is better than stopping at it.

The bigger the space in front of you to the next car the better generally. The big gap allows you to control your speed with the accelerator pedal and mostly leave the brake pedal alone. If someone pulls into the gap, don't get angry, they will soon enough change lanes again. This from an ex lane jumper.

 

I agree with you, pri-mordial. Bad timing is what we're experiencing, methinks. I'm coddling the baby and the traffic signals are making me pay the price (and I am indeed not racing to get to the lights but perhaps my timing sucks...it's all a bit of a guessing game since timing is partially related to traffic that is present at the oncoming intersections).

 

Depends who's in power at your local council. Have you had a change of local government? Some of our 'green' leaning parties have made it clear they are anti-car and are trying to discourage car use. One of the methods they employ is to set the traffic lights to turn red as you approach, go through their sequence and then turn green again. Most of the traffic lights in Harrogate were set like this when the Liberals were in power and boy did it boil your blood (as well as lead to more red light jumping).

However, one of the first things the Conservatives did when they got a majority in the council was change this rule. Now the lights mostly turn green when you head towards them. It is apparant at night when the roads are quieter. It would cheese me off when driving down a main road at 3am and the lights would detect you, turn red and then you'd have to wait 2 mins for them to go through their sequence. Now the same roads have been changed to the opposite which is how it should have been.

 

^lol, sounds like some members of the elite ruling party were afflicted with a mental disorder. :X

 

At least on this side of the pond, many streets have traffic lights that are timed so that if you travel at the speed limit, you can go pretty far without stopping, given the timing of the consecutive lights.

If you travel too far above or below the speed limit, you get stopped more often. Could the you're now driving below the speed limit, so the cars ahead of you make it through, but you miss the green light.

 

Rolling through an intersection right after the light turns green will get you T-boned around here. Since the governor opposes the technology, and many through streets are also state highways, red-light violation cameras are not allowed on the busiest routes around town. Even stopped first in line when the light goes green requires one to check whether traffic is still crossing.

OTOH, stopping at a just-changed-to-red light can get you rear-ended.

I have observed that drivers on the US east and west coasts are more responsive to a light turning green than here in flyover country. Maybe it's what they were taught in drivers' ed. Also, local drivers on Saturday are efficient, while on Sunday they drive as if they are on a paseo.

Not meaning to hijack the thread.

 

Traffic light arrangements vary considerably in the UK. Some of our rural junction have a simple timer. Some use radar to give a kind of "intelligent" control that depends upon traffic presence and volume. Some have pedestrian control so that people on foot can get across when necessary. Some have manual adjustment from a control room using cameras to see the junction and many now have traffic cameras that photograph your car (and its number plates) if you fail to stop on red or go forward before green or enter a junction where traffic control is in place.

I don't know whether there are still places with synchronised lights in series. It used to be like that in Slough - you could drive down the main street at 30 m.p.h. and the whole series of crossing junctions would show a green light. It is probably not possible now with the high traffic densities that we experience.

I liked the arrangement that I found is some parts of the U.S. where illuminated signs indicated the speed at which it is necessary to drive in order to arrive at the next junction while the lights are showing green. Does that system still operate?

 

No, actually the opposite. I feel I am getting more green light now than red.
I think it is in our heads.

 

I noticed when in Burnley, England they have a different light sequence than here. Here the light changes red to green then yellow briefly then red.
In Burnley the light goes from red to red + yellow briefly then green then yellow briefly then red.
I noticed in Burnley most drivers go when the red and yellow lights are on if there is no one coming the other way.
My reading of the English Highway Code tells me you are supposed to wait until the light turns green.

 

Yeah I think we're one of only a few places left that does it this way. Lights changing to red are the same as everywhere else in the world, but from red to green it is as you state. The yellow light comes on in addition to the red for a second before turning to green. Don't know why we have it this way. Maybe its because it's been like this for years and its now a legacy thing?

We also appear to have a weird system that causes no end of problems with our European visitors. In other countries you can't pass a red light, where here on a red light you can't pass the white line on the junction that the traffic lights control. The problem occurs when the traffic lights are placed at the other side of the junction to the white line. Difficult to explain without a picture but causes all sorts of fun and games with visiting european drivers who will stop at the red light rather than the white line (which they will have just passed 20 feet earlier), leaving them vulnerable in the middle of the junction/intersection!