Is there intelligent life out there?

[Tabby]

Why can't traffic lights be more intelligent? I'm fed up of waiting when nothing is coming the other way! Most set of light seem to follow a set sequence. WHY??

Is it a deliberate ploy to get us off the roads?

NB Maybe this should be in 'motoring' but it's my soul that's hurting.

Tabby.

[Kev_UK]

Hi Tabby

I know what you mean.. and the day you think.. oh well, I can see nothing is coming ang go through on red is the day you get caught.
Some do have sensors across the road to detect the amount of traffic and some you can trigger (at night) by flashing your headlamps at them... they are mainly the roadworks ones.

[Sammy Snake]

Wow, that;s interesting to know.   I have been driving for nearly 20 years and never knew you could trigger traffic lights (of any kind) by flashing your lights at them!

If any one is sitting at traffic lights sometime soon and sees someone the other side flashing their lights like mad, it will be me!!!

[jno]

I remember reading somewhere that they are meant to slow traffic down even in the middle of the night when there's not much around - so yes, it may well be intended to deter you from using the roads.

[Hippy]

Busy cross roads and each direction (that's four) gets its own go at the lights. I wait at the junction in the little separate slip road to turn left but have to wait until it's my direction's turn. When the traffic to my left travelling towards my right is allowed to go then there is nothing possibly coming from right to left so I should be able to go, but no. The traffic light people keep you waiting for ever, and then you have to have rocket fuel and the reaction time of a computer if more than a couple of cars can get through before it's red again for a quarter of an hour.

The poor pedestrians have it the same. They dutifully wait with the red man far ages whilst nothing is coming, then the green man lights up for a few seconds, just before the traffic roars across the juction straight towards them.

It's a ploy to make us read those annoying adverts by the side of the road. It's a ploy to get us so wound up that we need to buy thoses little anti-stress pills. It's a ploy by the oil companies to sell more fuel. In general it's anti-people, both car drivers and pedestians.

[jno]

yes Hippy many American states permit free right turns (equivalent of left in the UK) in such circumstances; onus on the driver to make sure it's safe. They also have four-way stop signs at intersections, where you enter in the order in which you arrived, so no waiting forever at roundabouts.

[Grunty]

Many sets of traffic lights do alter their sequence according to the amount of traffic about, particularly those that have been replaced in the last few years.  No doubt the others are on the list to be done.  In town, you will often find that all traffic lights are on green when you reach them if you drive at 30 mph.  Temporary traffic lights react to the presence of a vehicle, not to headlights.  They change because you are there and it is safe for them to change, not because you are playing with your headlights.  That is likely to cause some clown coming the other way to take it as a signal to go ahead, and jump the lights.  (If it were not so, how would they know when to change in the daytime?)