Driving along a regular route today (where I know there are two sets of temporary traffic lights about 500m apart) came up behind a bus stopped in the road with its hazards on (well it is a fast bit of road), the car in front of me duely pulled up behind it as did, I followed about 15 others - all sitting there as patient as anything. The "pulse" of opposing traffic died out and still we waited, waited and waited. Anyway the passanger of the car in front got out, I thought "strange" only to run back, get in and the driver to pull out past the bus, I of course followed to find ourselves short of the lights by about 15 meters, which were happily running through the sequence on their own. The bus had obviously broken down (or something) just short of the lights, ended up chuckling to myself about the sheep like qualities of drivers - including myself.
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A similar thing happened to us many years ago when we came to a T junction and someone at the front of the queue stalled, so nobody got over on the change of lights, which went back to red.
And stayed red.
And stayed red.
This was in the days of pad-operated lights and it suddenly dawned on someone that, as no traffic had gone over the pad, the system thought that the road was empty.
Someone either edged onto the pad or jumped on it or something and everything went back to normal.
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Know what you mean pugugly, bit like situation in the middle of a complicated series of calculation you find yourself using the calculator to multiply by 10.
DOH!
As for changing traffic lights who else flashes main beam at the road works temporary ones, and does it work?
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Well I do for one. sometimes they take it sometimes not - their choice when all said and done.
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For a while I worked as a mechanic on temporary lights, genny's and so on.
Flashing headlamps won't work. The lights are set up in one of two ways, either a fixed time sequence, or vehicle approach sensor. The sensor looks like a plastic box, most are on top the lights, but one manufacturer fits them underneath. Badly positioned lights could mean that the sensor isn't pointing at the right place and might not detect a car. Also, they only detect moving cars and approaching the lights too slowly might not trigger the sensor. Waving a hand towards the sensor will trigger it. (from a metre or so). Anyway, for various reasons, most lights are set to fixed time changing. Obviously the timing takes into account the length of the roadworks, but the lights can be forced to change via a control panel on the genny (if anyone needs to know).
Finally, I've installed a few sets of temporary lights and you wouldn't believe some of the things that 'normal' irate motorists get up to. Verbal abuse, waving fists, horn blowing, empty fag packets and drink cans thrown at me from passing cars. Often had to jump for my life as cars sped by with inches to spare.
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I have to congratulate the Traffic Light fellows at the above site. Both sets are within 500m and seem to be perfectly synchronised - the further set, from whatever direction, seems to have the perfect amount of "lag" so if you hit the first on green, at the right speed, the next set will, obligingly, be on green....
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One of our local sets is done so at 56km/h if you get one, you get all of them!
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