|
South on the A306 Rocks Lane Barnes, where it crosses the A205 Upper Richmond road. I Timed it - 8 - yes 8 lousy rotten seconds. One poor bloke didnt even have time to get his car in gear and handbrake off. Average was three cars across. What is the point! 15 minutes to travel the two hundred yards to the traffic lights - on a Sunday.
|
One poor bloke didnt even have time to get his car in gear and handbrake off.
Whilst I agree that traffic light phasing is very questionable sometimes, I do feel that some traffic congestion would be eased if people were a little more switched on when it comes to lights changing to green (the red and amber gives you an indication that the next light will be green and time to go). I find it very frustrating when the driver at the head of the queue only thinks about putting the car in gear and releasing the hand brake when the green light has shown for a few seconds already.
|
Definitely there are known shocking traffic light changes that encourage people to adopt a different driving style. The right turn from Lensfield road, Cambridge into Regent St has about enough time to let 3 cars through driving normally (not even one of the above type).
There is a convention amongst Cambridge drivers (who are otherwise imho the gentlest drivers in the country (cue tirade from cyclists) that you start moving the moment you see a flash of amber; that you move off wheels squealing; that you stay bumper to bumper with the car in front; that you don't stop going round the corner unless the lights are firmly on red. During the rush hour, you can get up to 10 'regulars' through - which all goes to pot when you get a tourist!
Surely this doesn't lead to safer driving. (But then Cambridge is so fiercely anti-car that it's a wonder that they let cars in to the town at all!) This junction was remodelled 5/6 years ago, at the cost of £1m, since when traffic has stopped moving through it properly. In the name of progress...
|
The right turn from the A40 into Denham is/was similar. A green filter lets you across the eastbound traffic but is so brief that those who know it will carry on right up to the wire - I have seen two cars go across on the red.
The queue to turn right is usually several hundred yards long and stretches back onto the road thus obstructing the westbound A40 traffic and causing a hazard as people change from lane 2 to lane 1 so that they can overtake in the inside.
Not a safe or wise arrangement, I feel.
|
In London, if you're not accelerating hard by the time it's red-amber the guy behind is leaning on the horn. Real Londoners are in second gear by the time the light is green.
Not much time for pedestrians to cross though.....
How about driving like the cyclists in London: just drive through the red light?
Gareth
|
How about driving like the cyclists in London: just drive through the red light?
I`m just outside london and most drivers do.cameras or not
|
|
|
|
>>I find it very frustrating when the driver at the head of the >>queue only thinks about putting the car in gear and releasing >>the hand brake when the green light has shown for a few >>seconds already.
But its amusing when the car beside you at the lights is revving its engine and inching forward, then when the lights change you release the handbrake and gently accelerate with an automatic gearbox, and watch them dissapear in your rearview mirror.
|
But its amusing when the car beside you at the lights is revving its engine and inching forward, then when the lights change you release the handbrake and gently accelerate with an automatic gearbox, and watch them dissapear in your rearview mirror.
Or the car at the head of the queue sits so far behind the line the sensors do not pick up a car waiting and then take an age to change. Or with a right filter light, the ahead only goes green, the right filter driver goes across the red light and waits to turn, only again for the sensor not to pick them up and the across traffic starts, only to find a car sat in the middle of the junction. The look of panic on their faces. But then they shouldn't go through a red light!
|
"Or the car at the head of the queue sits so far behind the line the sensors do not pick up a car waiting and then take an age to change."
Not so funny when you have to get out of your car, walk to the front of the queue and explain to the bozo at the head of the line who has stopped a car length short of the lights that the reason we have all sat here for 3 cycles through the lights without ours turning green is because he is too far back for the sensors to detect the waiting vehicles, & then only to recieve a look that Medusa would be proud of, no thanks and finally a grudging shuffle forward. Hey presto, 30secs later we're all on the move again.
..mutter, mutter.....
|
There is a junction in Edinburgh - the Barnton I think?, that there are 2 sets of lights one immediately after the other.
The first set of lights stay on green for ages, however, as the second set is only 20 yards or so across the other side of the junction, it means that only 4 cars can pass through and then have to sit at the red lights on the second set.
And, of course, the lights are not sychronized..
|
|
|
|
|
