Red Light Breaking

Diamondmaker

This deserves a whole thread I think.

Has any one seen a car or been done for breaking a red light themselves.
Not in the Hollywood car chase sense but the piling up into the end of the tailback, on the other side of the junction kind of way.

I see this EVERY day at EVERY junction I come across at rush hour. During OP free flow ( another joke I wont get started on that one ) especially I noticed Guards at every junction watching this!!

Are red lights just a guide as to when to stop? :mad:

MrPudding

This really bugs me. Twice I have stopped at a red light on the N11 and have the person behind me stop, have a think and then pull past me and run the light.

Red light running seems to be a major problem in Dublin. I have seen plenty of coppers watch people run lights and do nothing.

Any sign of the red light camera trial finishing and the cameras being deployed?

MrP

Idleater

Diamondmaker wrote:

Has any one seen a car or been done for breaking a red light themselves.

I agree it is a joke the amount that this happens.

Being a biker, I tend to be at the top of the queue at traffic lights so I do see this quite a bit.

Once at a junction, I was beside a garda car and someone went waaaaaay through red, as in the cop car and I were already about to proceed when this lady in a Jeep Cherokee sails through from the left after one lane of traffic had already stopped.

The blues went on, I waved at the gards and was on my way.

Again, I am not sure how far (in the law) this went but I have seen many people being stopped for doing it.

L.

Idleater

MrPudding wrote:

Any sign of the red light camera trial finishing and the cameras being deployed?

By this "trial" do you mean the camera at St Johns Road/Concolbert road???

I haven't seen that camera flash in a good while...

L.

Diamondmaker

nereid wrote:

Again, I am not sure how far (in the law) this went but I have seen many people being stopped for doing it.

L.

you HAVE seen many being stopped?

elexes

somone on boards got done for it sometime last year .

but i think there is a lot of people who dont pay attention to hte road and run a red light .

i see it happen a lot in tullamore

BrianD3

I have had two road rage incidents after I stopped for a red light that the guy behind expected me to break. Red light breaking is now endemic on Irish roads, anytime it's fairly busy in Dublin you'll see at least 3 or 4 car blatantly break through the red at every junction. IME it's not as bad outside Dublin but then the roads are less busy. I have never seen a cop pulling anyone for this

Fixed traffic lights are bad enough but even more blatant is the way drivers break through temp traffic lights at roadworks etc. It's not unusual to see 15 or 20 cars break a red light. This causes road rage as the guy on the other side of the roadworks has a green light but cannot go because of all the selfish w*nkers who broke the red. If enough cars break the red his green light may have turned red again before he gets to go.

green-blood

right repeat after me

AMBER MEANS STOP
AMBER MEANS STOP
AMBER MEANS STOP

yes STOP, not prepare to stop, not drop a gear its going to go red, not ah sure hurry up its gonna be red in a minute, AMBER MEANS STOP, NOW.

Passing RED light should be hammered, points and dangerous driving charges.

Incidentaly my mother was pulled by the usual leatehr fetish bike cop about 10 years ago, ignorant F*** never even removed his helmet, she went to court, he gve evidence to the judge that he was at teh junction and she broke the light by 0.8 seconds.... for the love of God, my father laughed outloud and nearly ended up doen for contempt, anyway she paid 20 quid.

prospect

green-blood wrote:

not drop a gear its going to go red, not ah sure hurry up its gonna be red in a minute, AMBER MEANS STOP, NOW.

You are so right,
I see cars and the amber light is on and the nose of the car lifts, the back hunchs down as they accelerate through the amber light... Knobs..

Downtime

green-blood wrote:

right repeat after me

AMBER MEANS STOP
AMBER MEANS STOP
AMBER MEANS STOP

Unless you are on top of the stop line and it is not safe to do so.

alias no.9

I admit on occasion that I'lll keep going on amber in circumstances when I could stop but I draw the line at that and I hate what seems to be the current practice of ploughing on through for a few seconds of red. There's probably a lot of you like me. Perhaps we all need to take the initiative on this and make a concerted effort to always stop on amber.

green-blood

Unless you are on top of the stop line and it is not safe to do so.

duh, the laws of physics and all, but Amber means STOP.

Me too Alias but if you ask anyone over lunch what amber means its scary the lack of knowledge. If people adhered to the amber issue, we wouldnt have the red issue. no wonder we cant bring in the flashing amber before a green law like the rest of the planet

kdevitt

The worse place I've noticed for this is the junction of the Clonsilla Road with Main Street in Blanch. People taking a right turn (coming from the garda station) up onto the Clonsilla Road are forever coming straight through the lights after they've gone red.

Its also impossible to see them because theres a wall for a chinese restaurant that blocks the view. Have had heaps of near misses there, and several of them seen by Gardai who ware on operation freeflow.

Its so dangerous, I can't believe it has been let go unpunished for so long. Maybe its that its very hard to prove in court? Garda says the light was red, defendant will say it was amber and they couldn't stop in time.??

alias no.9

green-blood wrote:

Unless you are on top of the stop line and it is not safe to do so.

duh, the laws of physics and all, but Amber means STOP.

Me too Alias but if you ask anyone over lunch what amber means its scary the lack of knowledge. If people adhered to the amber issue, we wouldnt have the red issue. no wonder we cant bring in the flashing amber before a green law like the rest of the planet

Most of them can't tell you what green means either.

HelterSkelter

A pet hate of mine also.

I think part of the reason people break red lights is that the green light stays on for to short a time. For example the St. Mary's Road junction with Crumlin Road the green light stays on for 6 seconds!! yes 6 seconds. If there are anymore than three cars on front of you,you will not get through. And if the person at the front is sleeping then sometimes only one car gets through before the lights change. People get frustrated and go through the red light.

Another reason is people at the front of the queue sleeping and not ready when the light turns green. People behind get píssed off and when the light turns red again they try to get through anyway. Bringing in the UK system of red & amber before green might help with this.

Fey!

green-blood wrote:

right repeat after me

AMBER MEANS STOP
AMBER MEANS STOP
AMBER MEANS STOP

yes STOP, not prepare to stop, not drop a gear its going to go red, not ah sure hurry up its gonna be red in a minute, AMBER MEANS STOP, NOW.

Doesn't amber mean "stop as long as it's safe to do so"?
In other words, if you're doing 30kph coming to a green light, you're 5 metres away and it flicks to amber, you don't drop anchor and lose control; you continue going.

Anyone got the ROTR definition?

Downtime

Fey! wrote:

Doesn't amber mean "stop as long as it's safe to do so"?
In other words, if you're doing 30kph coming to a green light, you're 5 metres away and it flicks to amber, you don't drop anchor and lose control; you continue going.

Anyone got the ROTR definition?

Yes it does but be careful because safe cross code (green-blood) is likely to belittle your exactness. :rolleyes:

Fey!

Downtime wrote:

Yes it does but be careful because safe cross code (green-blood) is likely to belittle your exactness. :rolleyes:

You'll have to spell that out for me - suffering from brain-fry in the heat!!!!

green-blood

cheers for the compliments Downtime

1-look for safe place
2-use latex gloves doent wann leave finger prints
3-club annoying poster with blunt instrument

etc etc


Doesn't amber mean "stop as long as it's safe to do so"?

for them most pedantic out there



====
RED LIGHT
• A driver approaching a traffic light showing red must not proceed beyond the stop line at that light or, if there is no stop line, beyond that light.


AMBER LIGHT
• A driver approaching a traffic light showing amber while no other traffic light (immediately above or below) shows any light, must not proceed beyond the stop line at that light (or if there is no stop line, beyond that light) save when the vehicle is so close to the stop line when the amber light is first engaged that the vehicle cannot safely be halted before the stop line.


GREEN LIGHT
• A driver approaching a traffic light showing green may proceed past the light provided the way is clear.

======

if drivers adhered to the rules of the road and oneyed the amber light rules NO-one would break a red light because "they were too close to stop"

MadKevo

Living abroad, it gives me some perspective (I think)when I visit Dublin in particular.
Where I live if you get one green light, the lights on front of you generally turn green when you approach them, they are timed according to the speed limit and traffic conditions, the idea being to keep traffic moving.
It seems to be the opposite in Dublin, with the intention to grind everything to a halt.
I appreciate that in a medieval city-centre street layout there are a lot of factors at play, but for example on N11/ Stillorgan dual carriageway, where all of the joining roads can be timed from the dual carriageway more or less independently of significant parallel or crossing roads, this could be done but clearly isn't. A good example is driving in the middle of the night - think of how many lights that are red for no good reason other than the piss you off.
I'm not apologising for red-light runners, but it's unnecesssary frustration a lot of the time.
Traffic light reform, time for it I think.

Diamondmaker

[/QUOTE]A good example is driving in the middle of the night - think of how many lights that are red for no good reason other than the piss you off.
I'm not apologising for red-light runners, but it's unnecesssary frustration a lot of the time.
Traffic light reform, time for it I think.[/QUOTE]

its to prevent cars getting up to speed on empty roads and hence speeding etc....

Fey!

Green-Blood - thanks for the clarification.

Idleater

Diamondmaker wrote:

you HAVE seen many being stopped?

Yeah, every now and again. Generally once every couple of weeks. It livens up my journey .

It's like the vehicles pulled over in the buslane trying to explain to the garda what they are doing there :rolleyes:

Aah the benifits of being a bike commuter...


L.

MrPudding

HelterSkelter wrote:

Another reason is people at the front of the queue sleeping and not ready when the light turns green. People behind get píssed off and when the light turns red again they try to get through anyway. Bringing in the UK system of red & amber before green might help with this.

They cannot bring in amber before green because of the red light running. In NI some junctions will have the amber before green ceom on at the same time as the amber before red for the opposong traffic, most have only a very small time delay.

The result of this is that running a red light is a very very dangerous thing. Most people in the north will stop on amber, even if it means giving the ABS some work to do.

MrP

MadKevo

Diamondmaker wrote:

A good example is driving in the middle of the night - think of how many lights that are red for no good reason other than the piss you off.
I'm not apologising for red-light runners, but it's unnecesssary frustration a lot of the time.
Traffic light reform, time for it I think.[/QUOTE]

its to prevent cars getting up to speed on empty roads and hence speeding etc....[/QUOTE]

To quote myself:

MadKevo wrote:

the lights on front of you generally turn green when you approach them, they are timed according to the speed limit and traffic conditions, the idea being to keep traffic moving.

subway

meh,
a few of the lights were out on the way to work today.
first time in 2 years there was no traffic jam.

i dont balme people for breaking lights, just wish theyed be more careful about it,
ie not running into traffic.

many roads are more than capable of working without lights so i dont always see the need for them, more stop and yield signs tbh

franksm

subway wrote:

i dont balme people for breaking lights, just wish theyed be more careful about it,
ie not running into traffic.

Running red-lights is never excusable, I see so many pi$$takes everyday, and lots of near misses. Funny how cyclists are the worst offenders, though, with their achey-breaky-bones.

ninty9er

AFAIK there is no legal position on cyclists, ROTR used to say proceed on green light or green man but not if green crosses your path.

Saw numerous people blatently break reds today waiting for the bus.

Also saw a woman stop at a green light when her way was clear, she nearly caused an accident and there was about 6 cars blowing her out of it. She could have made someone late for work as that particualr set has a long red - long green sequence, not that that makes much odd once they actually do get there

Drax

I slowed for an amber light this morning on a two lane stretch while the car beside me went through only to look in the mirror and see some old git behind me shake his head for about 5 minutes as if to say 'you should have gone through the light'. Idiot.

Trampas

nereid wrote:

By this "trial" do you mean the camera at St Johns Road/Concolbert road???

I haven't seen that camera flash in a good while...

L.

I know. I remember loads of times been on the SCR heading towards Kilmainham and seeing that light flash numerous of times but i has been years since i have seen it flash

Fey!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uIirwOavs8&search=traffic%20lights%20red

HelterSkelter

MrPudding wrote:

They cannot bring in amber before green because of the red light running. In NI some junctions will have the amber before green ceom on at the same time as the amber before red for the opposong traffic, most have only a very small time delay.

I was watching the lights in London recently and amber/green doesn't come on until the red comes on at the other junction.