Traffic lights at roadworks

ergonomics

Ok, this one has me really stumped so I hope someone can explain it.

In between Oola and Monard, Tipperary at the moment some roadworks are taking place. They are controlled by temporary traffic lights and there are lots of signs in advance warning of them. I approached them on Friday from the Oola side and got stopped at them. There were about 10 cars in front of me. Traffic starts moving off and when I reach the lights they are red, so I stop. Without hesitation all the cars behind me start overtaking me and continuing on so I thought maybe I had seen the light wrong (it was sunny) and continued on myself. About 3 cars followed me.

Today I approached from the Monard side and was the 2nd car in the queue, behind a lorry. I couldn't actually see the lights because of the lorry. Anyway, lorry starts moving off and I am next car in the row but when I get to them, 2 seconds after the lorry, they are red. I learned my lesson from Friday and continued on but the car behind me stopped and all the other cars overtook them without hesitation and continued on.

So I'm really really confused, which I think is fair. There are no workers around to signal traffic to move on but every seems to know when to go and when not to go. Do the traffic lights ever go green and do people just break them out of lack of patience or is there some unspoken rule about temporary traffic lights that I don't know? Red means stop, so why does no one stop? And how do they know when to let other traffic go, as only one side of the road is open?

Stephen

Temporary lights usually have really long cycles. People break them a lot because they're impatient arseholes.

macnab

in my opinion temp traffic lights become a hazzard if they are left in place for more than a week or two, the locals learn the time sequence and disregard the lights thereafter, also if they can see that there is no one waiting at the other end they drive on regardless of the colour of the lights, I however am a saint........;)

bman

On a related point, is it illegal to go through a temporary traffic light while red? ie. are they the same legally as a normal traffic light

And no, I don't break them before one of the super saints brigade asks.

Alanstrainor

bman wrote: »

On a related point, is it illegal to go through a temporary traffic light while red? ie. are they the same legally as a normal traffic light

And no, I don't break them before one of the super saints brigade asks.

Of course it's illegal. You must obey temporary road signage, just as you would permanent.

Anan1

Put simply, the lights are set up to allow slow drivers to clear the roadworks before traffic is allowed to come from the other direction. The faster people drive, the more cars can pass after the lights have gone red. The locals, being used to the setup, know when it's actually necessary to stop.

Gregor Samsa

Anan1 wrote: »

The locals, being used to the setup, often think they know when it's actually necessary to stop.

I just had to fix that statement. I saw some very sticky situations on the Tulla Road just outside Ennis last year when they had temporary lights up during re-surfacing.

Eoin

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Of course it's illegal. You must obey temporary road signage, just as you would permanent.

Is that definitely the case though?

Remember the loophole a while ago where some fines and points issued from people breaking temporary speed limits were overturned because the speed limits where not officially put down by the relevant council?

timmywex

eoin_s wrote: »

Is that definitely the case though?

Remember the loophole a while ago where some fines and points issued from people breaking temporary speed limits were overturned because the speed limits where not officially put down by the relevant council?

There is some loophole, of some sorts, cant think of it exactly, it comes down to notoification in local papers, planning and something else, cant remember the thing tbh, my dad told me once (garda btw), but at the same time, i wouldnt be doing it around garda cars or if there are people coming the other way, of course!

ergonomics

Stephen wrote: »

Temporary lights usually have really long cycles. People break them a lot because they're impatient arseholes.

That's completely true but today when I met them I was the second car in the queue and when I reached the lights they were already red. I'm wondering if they ever go green at all. I'm dreading the drive back as I don't know what to do at these lights.

macnab wrote: »

in my opinion temp traffic lights become a hazzard if they are left in place for more than a week or two, the locals learn the time sequence and disregard the lights thereafter, also if they can see that there is no one waiting at the other end they drive on regardless of the colour of the lights, I however am a saint........;)

I drove down the Sunday before last and the lights weren't there so they only appeared sometime between Sunday and Friday.

Anyway my main issue, as I already said, is I don't know how to act at these lights and am absolutely dreading the return journey on Friday. Does red mean stop or go? What do I do? Do I stop and let everyone else overtake me or do I continue on, guessing that the lights never go red but risking breaking the lights?

Our man in Havana

While the lights may not have legal backing, if is always open to the Gardaí to prosecute for dangerous driving.

Anan1

ergonomics wrote: »

That's completely true but today when I met them I was the second car in the queue and when I reached the lights they were already red. I'm wondering if they ever go green at all. I'm dreading the drive back as I don't know what to do at these lights.

If you're first up and they're red then wait. As soon as someone passes you, follow them. Don't dawdle.:)

Alanstrainor

eoin_s wrote: »

Is that definitely the case though?

Remember the loophole a while ago where some fines and points issued from people breaking temporary speed limits were overturned because the speed limits where not officially put down by the relevant council?

Taken from the rules of the road. There's 2 signs referred to in the quote, a green one that says go and a red one that says stop. I would presume it applies to temporary lights aswell.*

Stop and Go traffic control at roadworks
When road works are being carried out you must stop when you see the Stop
sign below. You may only proceed through or past the road works when the Go
sign (Téigh) is displayed. It is an offence not to obey these signs.

*EDIT:

The signs can be operated by mechanical or manual
means.

ytareh

Darn the amount of these things around at this time of the year is infuriating.I think its something got to do with end/start of Council financial year and they want to spend every last cent on roadworks or something but its always the same .Of course the changeover time is always ridiculously long and you would have to be a "Super Saint" to actually stop at one which had just turned red.It seems a lot of the guys involved in operating them dont give a damn about how much inconvenience they cause ,even sometimes leaving them out overnight when not necessary .Worst ever case was when I saw they had left one (yes just ONE to control flow in one direction )out overnight but taken down the other .It was perfectly clear that it was safe to ignore it but Im sure the "Super Saints" stopped for their 5 minutes anyway (sure it keeps them off the overtaking lane on the motorways for a while I suppose)I was sorely tempted to get out and chuck it in the ditch.
Theyve also a lot more of these on narrow bridges eg Monasterevan to Portarlington where they waste lots of time just because every now and then some gobsh1te will get into a row with another because neither would give way .Of course despite many signs to the contrary human judgement trumps the machines and progress is normally far swifter without the lights .If they introduced these contraflow lights at the Hatch pub humpback bridge on Celbridge-Newcastle road there would be queues for miles.They had them on the main Celbridge 'bridge' for a few days once and there was chaos!!!They put black sacks over them shortly after .

WHITE_P

Stop on red, Go on green, don't mind what anyone else does, if a garda stops you after you passed a red light he / she can charge you for breaking the light, and they won't accept the excuse that everyone else did it too.

WHITE_P

Stephen wrote: »

People break them a lot because they're impatient arseholes.

+1

WHITE_P

Anan1 wrote: »

If you're first up and they're red then wait. As soon as someone passes you, follow them. Don't dawdle.:)

wow, that's a great bit of advice. :rolleyes:

ergonomics

WHITE_P wrote: »

wow, that's a great bit of advice. :rolleyes:

Well to be honest if you had read all my posts you would see that I said that I was the 2nd car in the queue today but when I passed light it was red. I was no more than 2 seconds behind the lorry in front yet the light was red when i got to it. My issue is that I don't think the lights ever go green. What do I do then? Just sit around all day waiting for the lights to change when they never do?

WHITE_P

ergonomics wrote: »

Well to be honest if you had read all my posts you would see that I said that I was the 2nd car in the queue today but when I passed light it was red. I was no more than 2 seconds behind the lorry in front yet the light was red when i got to it. My issue is that I don't think the lights ever go green. What do I do then? Just sit around all day waiting for the lights to change when they never do?

No I wouldn't recommend sitting there all day, but thread carefully, the guards could charge you if they catch you breaking the light, irrespective of where you are in the que.

These lights usually are a real pain in the backside, as the timing can be all over the place with them.

I've come across two sets recently where I passed a green light and met traffic starting to move when I reached the far end, the light at the other end had gone green before I cleared the road works, and before anyone suggests I was going too slow, I wasn't.

Honey-ec

Don't f*cking talk to me about temporary lights!!! The N81 has been lousy with them over the last few months - I think Kildare CoCo, Wicklow CoCo, the ESB and Bord Gais are all in some kind of competition with eachother to see who can have the most works ongoing at the same time.

What absolutely boggles my mind is that it doesn't seem to have occured to ANYONE actually working on the road that the vast majority of traffic is moving towards Dublin in the morning, and coming back from that direction in the evening - they just blindly give equal green time to both directions at all times. The end result being that it took me 25 minutes to get through Blessington one morning, but when I got to the far side of the works (where no-one was actually working, believe it or not!), there was a grand total of 3 cars waiting to go through the lights from that side. Genius!!!

You would think that giving priority to the greater volume of traffic would just be basic cop-on, but apparently not...

Jip

The temporary lights are usually erected by some labourer who has no idea how the traffic works in the area when puts the lightsd up in, hence they're usually on a ****e sequence for all involved.

Case in point are ones in Dublin on the Cappagh Road between the travellers site at the bridge over the M50 and Cappagh Hospital. The sequence was the same be it rush hour or late at night for both directions. This led to the ridiculous situation that caused huge tailbacks in the evenings for poeple heading the Blanchardstown direction. I'm guessing the gardai or council then got involved as now in the evenings they're controlled by point men with walkie talkies that allow traffic to disperse from the heavier side and it works quiet well since.

But as long as temporary lights are randomly thrown up with no thought put into how it affects traffic people will break them, myself included.

Harcrid

My issue is that I don't think the lights ever go green. What do I do then? Just sit around all day waiting for the lights to change when they never do?

I go through these lights twice a day, and they do go green. I see loads of people jumping the reds though every time I reach them.

ergonomics

Celtxx wrote: »

I go through these lights twice a day, and they do go green. I see loads of people jumping the reds though every time I reach them.

Thanks. That's all I needed to know. I will wait in future.

jedijonvtec

the problem with these lights is that they are timed wrong by the person erecting them on site. i used to work in a tool hire firm and every time we got these lights back off councils/ contractors. they were timed arseways and we had to reset the timers on them. they are fairly simple turn on but ya need to calculate the timings in relation to roads and traific etc.

the reason there always red or dont seem to change is because mainly of people breaking them and then there red again before you get through.

in relation to the guards and breaking the lights, a friend of mine was waiting at a set of these one night, waited till the went green and then moved on. it was at a humpback bridge and when he was about to cross a woman ran into him at about 40 mph. gaurds were called and when they came to the seen , they told my friend and the female driver that it was a 5050 crash as temporary roads are always this????

what a cop out

jenizzle

Bloody temp traffic lights would drive anyone bonkers - anyone travelling on the new road from Kilcock to Summerhill would know. The most ridiculous ones are the other side of Summerhill towards Rathmoylan, which aide those who are idiotic enough to stop at the lights, to pass out the wheelbarrow parked at the side of the road :mad: What a waste of time.

Berty

I know of these lights. I pass them on a frequent basis.

The problem is that when they go red straight away a lot of cars will keep going through because the cars at the other side have no idea whether or not you ran a red light or the construction workers set them up incorrectly.

I have been guilty of running these to a certain extent of course. I will not blatantly run the light if there is no traffic in front of me. I will follow like a sheep BUT if there is traffic behind me I will stop. You never know who is behind you.

As a former construction worker the law states you must obey construction workers directions during roadworks. A builder cannot climb down off scafollding and hold up the entire road just for the laugh but roadworkers can stop traffic because they must at some points.

Another note: Last night. I was in one of my more patient modes when a construction van stopped traffic at the end of the dual carraigeway by Finnegans roundabout in Limerick. We were around 2 kms away from the roundabouts. I knew they were re-surfacing the new bigger outer ring of the roundabout( for the new flyover ) but we sat there with the engines off 20 minutes. Some people were going mental screaming from far far back at the poor bloke in the van who stupidly got out of the van. He was plagued with morons walking up the dual carraigeway to ask him what was wrong. Knowing the answer wont get you there faster..........

One guy in a Black Focus drove inside the bollards and right past him only to be stopped by a couple of hi viz guys further along who blocked his path with cones. Cheeky F**K.

Dont worry too much about roadwords. Which council can afford roadwords these days with the big R floating around??