stuck behind someone on a yellow box...

[joko]

very odd thing happened to me today...
i was driving on a main road, dual carriageway, and traffic was moving slowly, i passed through some traffic lights on green but because of the traffic didnt get far...
i waited a while for the car in front to move...until after a few minutes i realised there was nothing in front of this car (it was getting dark so i didnt notice straight away)
I wondered why they had stopped and tried to look around and couldnt see ahead.

eventually i realised that this person had stopped at the second line, at the second red light...!

you know how at traffic lights there is another light ahead on the other side that matches the one you are stopped beside... well she had stopped on the other side of that - in the middle of the crossing!
the only reason it was no problem was because it was not a crossroads, but a main road with one side road...and no-one was waiting to turn...

eventually i got a bit exasperated, but figured maybe there was something in her path that i couldnt see, or maybe she was ill or something, so moved out from behind her into the right hand lane to look around -
she seemed fine and was just staring at the red light on her right - (probably a new driver)
I was confused and even began to doubt myself for a second but on checking that i was right i decided to go round her...
but i couldnt because at the moment a van was crossing my path as it was moving out into the traffic going the opposite way and stopped...

so i was stuck in the yellow hatched box because of this girl.

after a minute or so the lights changed and we all just went on..

ive never heard of anyone doing this before.. i suspect it was because of the slow traffic and she just saw the red line and stopped

my question is...is she in trouble?

and also, am i? Even though it was not my fault...?

i would fight this because of the the circumstances, but has any law actually been broken and would we have been photographed in any way...?

i know you should not enter the box until your way is clear...but the traffic was slow moving at the time, not stopped, and normally would have just continued on...so what else could i have done...?

cheers

[joko]

because of the slow speed, i was quite near the back of her moving along as was everyone else...

its a strange rule really... i understand its necessary in situations of bad traffic, so people dont get stuck and block traffic coming acrossways...but this is an unusual situation...

she would not have blocked traffic coming from the right though as there was one lane in the side road and 2 lanes on the main...
im not really sure there is much need for a box to be there at all really, thinking about.

[ChuckFickens]

unfortunately, somebody else driving like a numpty doesn't excuse you from breaking the law, You said yourself "yes i know that 'technically' i was in the wrong place." and the law is about the technicalities.

We all do it, but if caught out because of it it's still wrong.

[joko]

yes evian, i undertsand the rule.. its just that in this instance the way ahead of her was clear so i had no reason to expect her to stop and just sit there for about a minute...

something to bear in mind though i suppose - not everyone knows how traffic lights work

[joko]

aye, i suppose so chuck

id still fight it though i reckon

[jno]

.

[ojread2]

I know chuck, it was just you made a statement tha' twasn't true

[joko]

what got removed?

[joko]

actually, dont tell me, i dont really care

[ummmm]

Just the numpty with the offensive user name...

[jno]

there's trolls about (or probably just the one) - don't take it personally, joko.

[Old_Geezer]

"eventually i realised that this person had stopped at the second line, at the second red light...!"

Have to say something similar appened to me once except that there was no box. On a straight road just a car in front of me and myself driving along. There was a junction where a Tesco had been built and the new entrance had been given its own set of lights. We had both passed the line and they suddenly stopped for no good reason. I could see it but found it difficult to believe they'd seen the lights change to red on the other side of the junction as we were crossing, and they stopped.

Honestly, how do some folk get through the test ?

[joko]

thats exactly it OG ...i suppose its fear of running a red light ... if in doubt and all that

i can see how it could potentially maybe on an odd shaped and confusing junction ... but this was a yellow box she was sitting in haha

[woofgang]

A good bit of advice given by my driving teacher was drive as though yellow boxes are railway level crossings.