Quote:
Originally Posted by wdb
Reminds me of a former annoyance. Large intersection with separate traffic light cycles for left turns and traffic in each direction of the crossroad, a total of 6 cycles in all. I would get there in the middle of the night, with no other car in sight, and the light would turn and I would wait through all of the cycles. That light had no sensors whatsoever - it just cycled through on its own little schedule, oblivious to butterfly, traffic volume, time of day, you name it.
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Great intersection to shut the engine off while you wait. In fact, great place to practice light timing. (See? Always look on the bright side of life
)
Recently, pedestrian crossing lights in my area are being upgraded with sensors that turn the light red if a car is going faster than the speed limit. Cool, no problem if I'm alone, but I get a red when a car going in the opposite direction is speeding. Why? Why do I have to stop when I wasn't the one speeding?
But it gets better: There is a street close by, 2 lanes each way, nice and straight over 5-6km, goes parallel to the river, so the only intersections are with roads on the east side. It's a great place to (illegally) race at night, so what did the authorities do to make it safer? The lights have sensors and are programmed to turn red during the night hours. Turn red right in front of the car, so that it has to slam the brakes to stop. As soon as the driver takes his teeth out of the steering wheel the light is green again. Acceleration, 500 meters, and slam the brakes again. Etc., etc., and so on. The PSL is 70 km/h, by trial and error I've found that going 40-50 km/h allows you to catch most of the lights
just as they turn green again. I've heard that going 150 km/h allows you to hit the lights
just before they turn red. As mentioned earlier, this was supposed stop speeding and racing, but the effect is that no-one pays attention and just runs the reds. Except for me, but thankfully I've found a better route: not only is it shorter (10.1km vs 10.6km), but also it has a lower speed limit (50km/h all the way vs 70km/h most of the way) and less lights. Win-win.