This from the new Highway Code:
Q6. What should you do if you drive up to a junction where the traffic lights have failed?
A6. When traffic lights are not working, treat the situation as you would an unmarked junction and proceed with great care.
This appears to be new and sensible advice. I thought the previous theoretical rule was that you were breaking the law if you ignored failed lights?
Note it says "failed" or "not working", not turned off. So lights stuck permanently on red can be deemed to have "failed" ?
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Note it says "failed" or "not working" not turned off. So lights stuck permanently on red can be deemed to have "failed" ?
yes a light that's stuck is failed
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What about design failure? ;)
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How about stuck on red with camera attached?
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How about stuck on red with camera attached?
then you better make sure its broke because you will be in court calling on the engineers report to prove it was defective at the time.....
Edited by Altea Ego on 25/02/2009 at 11:42
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The town of Drachten in Holland did away with all traffic lights and saw avg traffic speeds increase.
From the Telegraph:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533248/Is-this-th...l
I always enjoy coming across failed lights, it stirs the blood and puts the bejeesus into mimsers.
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yes but we all know lights are set up NOT for our convenience, otherwise say along the A4, they'd be synchronised so if you keep to 40 the limit,you'd sail through every set of lights -but no it's done so only if you do 50 or 60 can you get through.
.*******
The Govt wants to reduce carbon footprints, well coordinate the lights rahter than having us sitting at lights.
Also MOST lights could/should be switched off at 9pm - especailly at roundabouts --aaagh
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> The Govt wants to reduce carbon footprints, well coordinate the lights ..
Surely you don't think it's the Govt's job to co-ordinate traffic lights? That really would stir up the Backroom ...
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I had this problem at a staggered junction last week. I was first in the queue, and waited for several "cycles" of the lights. Two cars back, someone did a "U" turn. The chap behind shouted "I think they're stuck, mate!". I drove on when there was a safe gap, and saw the person behind follow. At the next lights, I asked him whether they had changed or not. He said they changed just after I went through!
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The way some traffic lights are phased these days you wonder if they've failed or just set like that out of spite!
Or to speed up the introduction of a congestion charge ;-)
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>>He said they changed just after I went through!
In which case my guess is they had automatic sensors, and you were not sitting far enough forward.
The set of lights to turn right up to town at the end of Station Road in Cambridge (used to?) have this fault. Bemused drivers (would) sit there for several cycles waiting for them to change.
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What annoys me more than anything about temporary traffic lights is the lazy workmen who take them down at night but still leave all the signs up to save them having to put them back out the next day.
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Tell me about it. In Oxford it's possible to drive along an empty road at 3am and have every traffic light turn to red as you approach using one of those radar things.
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I was in Oxford last weekend. Never again (I said that the last time I was there, too). £2.50 to park, per hour, even on a Sunday.
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The various Oxford express coaches are cheap and frequent to and from London.
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We have some alternate-flow traffic lights at a narrow bridge near where I live. I don't have a problem in the car but if I'm on my bicycle the sensors don't detect me and the lights stay on red. The road is quite busy so I sometimes sit and wait for a vehicle to appear to activate the sensor. Failing that I get off and push the bike along the pavement.
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I pulled up at a set of tempoary lights on red a few miles from home that I hadnt seen before. Some of the interminal gas works in the east mids. It took only a minute or so of waiting to get tooted at and swore at by drivers behind saying they were broken! As if I was to know eh!
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