Whats Up With Traffic Lights Not Being Obeyed.

Garrett

Came across one today again in my father approaching a set of lights with two lanes, near side straight ahead, offside turning right.
My father turning right so in the offside and just behind two in the near side, and the lights turn to red, the first car in the nearside stops so the car behind in the near side pulls out into the offside almost clipping my dads car, goes through the the lights and straight ahead. Could have had the chance hitting both my father car, the car in the nearside and a pedestrian on the crossings just on the far side of the lights just for about 30 seconds.
If you have a dashcam of these incidents can you post the videos anywhere and have them used for a prosecution? Unfortunately neither my father or I have one but when you see downright dangerous driving I personally feel like getting one and getting these idiots of the road if you can.

gibbsy

Read the Highway Code.
Red: Stop.
Green: Go.
Amber: Go like ****. When in doubt, flat out.

On a serious note we have a very busy roundabout that has had for several years had part time traffic lights. For the last couple of months they have been on 24/7. You go through a green light at your peril without taking a damn good look to your right and when waiting at a red you can see drivers speeding up when they change to amber.

wongataa

Have a look at the website of the relevant Police force.  On there they should tell you how to report such incidents and what to do if you have camera footage of said incidents.

reiteration

I see this a hell of a lot on junctions - when a car pulls out (and has enough time and space etc) - then another car pulls out behind it, then more - and I've sometimes had to slow down when the final car has pulled out...

and there is a junction near where I live (on a rural road) and the junction is kinda facing the direction of the road - and it's down hill too...I'll be flying down when a car pulls up, it waits and waits - the pulls out and I've overtook them loads of times whilst honking my horn... ****s..!

Garrett

I was the very front of the lights today (usually behind a line) at a very busy roundabout and as it is the sequence for the traffic crossing in front seems a lot longer that the lights for me even though there very often an extremely long queue, anyway I'm watching them go through today and whilst red, 3 cars went though.
You can understand 1 car going through on amber so they don't have to slam all on and have a car run into the back but there no reason for this, you not got ample time to stop before red let alone be the 3rd car going though at red.
Another part of the town on a busy roundabout that uses lights and on the through road the sequence is that short only 5 cars can get through which is silly but then I never seen anyone going though at red probably they not got any speed up at all, but flaming frustrating if your the 6th car.

cdrider

I must admit I’ve been through 2 red lights recently. Both were because the car behind me wouldn’t have stopped in time due to the driver looking at a mobile phone on their knee!

I’d rather get a fine and points than rear ended.

John7

or you could get 10-15 years in jail for killing someone (pedestrian/cyclist/motorcyclist/car driver - take your pick) because you caused death by dangerous driving.

G a f f e r

I think timings of traffics lights (whilst not the absolute reason - that's down to the driver) are a factor.
Many lights were put up what 20, 30 years ago? Over that time, traffic has increased massively but the timings of those lights hasn't been revised to reflect this.

Two examples where revising the timing has worked:
Light near local Tescos would only go on to allow 3-4 cars through at a time. They then had some work to do and whilst they were at it, reprogrammed them so that not only do they now stay green for longer letting more cars through but also will "come out" of the algorithm if say, late at night and no one else is around, they'll turn green for you almost immediately as they detect your approach - no waiting at all .
Lights on way to work use to only let 3-4cars through, again, got revised a year ago and now let double that through at a time to allow for the increased traffic (longer time on green allows more cars through so there's less frustration which is why I assume some have the mentality of "having to get through" otherwise?).

One example of where it causes issues:
Road works have a temp light a few yards down from a permanent set also on the way to work. Unfortunately they've timed the temp set badly and it goes green when the slip road perm lights go green, so about 7-8 cars can get through. OTOH the main road part of the lights goes green when the temp lights (which has a long queue on it) is red.....so the main road goes green and only 1 car is let through at a time most times. This leads to a REALLY long queue on the main road stretching for 100yds and a 40min delay in a stretch of road that normally takes 20s to travel down....and yes, you guessed it, after long waits most drivers tend to zoom through those temp lights on amber and even reds because they've been waiting 40min to travel 100yds.

I simply avoid this altogether and have an alternate (4-5mile longer) route to work now which ends up halving my journey time, but I can see why people do it all the time on that particular section.
Even though responsibility does ultimately lie with the driver, you can cut down behaviour like this with intelligent timing that takes modern traffic into account imho.

Trollslayer

The traffic light timings around here with changed about a year ago, better for traffic but there are a couple of junctions where there isn't much time for pedestrians.

nvingo

It's definitely a frustration when you're waiting at a red light for 3 to 4 minutes when there's no traffic at all going through the greens, then just as your lights change to green, a queue of cars turns up and has to stop.