What are Traffic Lights there for???

petethedrummer

seamus wrote: »

So Pete, effectively what you're saying is that we should be all allowed to make up our minds as to whether it's safe or not and if we get it wrong and die,

Yes.

seamus wrote: »

then we just chalk it down as a bad manouver and get on with life? If it's left up to the individual, the individual will often make the wrong choice. Simple as. The roads would be chaos, and there'd be dead cyclists right, left & center as cars and trucks ran red lights to save themselves 5 minutes because, "There was nothing coming".

You seem to be implying that I am advocating that everyone should blaze through lights without consideration for other traffic or that we should intentionally go against all red lights. This is not the case.

As the junctions stand now, I would differentiate between pedestrians, bicycles and motor vehicles as to how they approach junctions. I think pedss and bikes should make up their own mind. And if you chose to wait for the light, you won't be thrown in jail.

For motor vehicles, junctions should be evaluated and lights disabled at off-peak times(initially) or a system introduced where major road would get a flashing green and a minor road gets a flashing amber. Which I believe happens in some countries, will try to find examples. Then junctions should be re-designed. And as an absolute last resort, traffic lights put in.

Eventually when I am ruler of the universe the whole world will be like that town in Norway that I can't remember the name of. It maybe be a complete disaster, but everytime I see how traffic behaves when lights have failed I am convinced it wouldn't be.

seamus wrote: »

It's a paradox - you're saying that someone shouldn't decide if they're not fit to decide. But if they're not fit to decide, how do they know that they're making the wrong decision?

I will have to come back to you now on this one, you just melted my brain.

petethedrummer

petethedrummer wrote: »

Eventually when I am ruler of the universe the whole world will be like that town in Norway that I can't remember the name of.

The reason I couldn't remember it is cos its in Sweden - Norrköping.

blorg

p15574 wrote: »

Since when was jaywalking illegal?

Since before 1948 anyway.

Dáil Éireann - Volume 113 - 18 November, 1948

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Regulation of Pedestrian Traffic in Cities and Towns.

Mr. Rooney asked the Minister for Local Government whether he will consider the desirability of regulating pedestrian traffic in all cities and towns with a population over 5,000, and of forbidding the crossing of streets except at specified points.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government (Mr. Corish): Pedestrian traffic throughout the country is already regulated by the general by-laws made for the control of traffic. These by-laws provide that a pedestrian is entitled to the right of way at pedestrian crossings, while vehicle users have the right of way over the rest of the roadway. Furthermore, at a junction controlled by a pointsman or traffic lights, a pedestrian is required to follow the direction of the pointsman or lights, and is forbidden to cross other than by way of a pedestrian crossing where such exists. When crossing the roadway at such a junction, he must not remain on the roadway longer than is reasonably necessary.

There is power to supplement these general provisions by having local by-laws made where necessary. It is open to any local authority to approach the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána with a view to having such by-laws made. They have, in fact, been made for a number of urban areas. In each case it is made an offence to cross a road or street where a crossing place for pedestrians exists within a distance of 50 feet on either side from such crossing place.

petermijackson

mitteman wrote: »

The lights are there for the gasguzzlers!

What about pedestrians??

For motor vehicles, junctions should be evaluated and lights disabled at off-peak times(initially) or a system introduced where major road would get a flashing green and a minor road gets a flashing amber. Which I believe happens in some countries, will try to find examples. Then junctions should be re-designed. And as an absolute last resort, traffic lights put in.

I like this idea!!! Sounds good, there are lots of junctions this would be useful on. But as for people making up their own mind when they get to traffic lights - bicycles follow the rules of the road and as such should abide by those rules. DOn't even got me started on people on bicycles that mount a footpath to avoid traffic lights. If your going to cycle a bik, do it where it belongs....on the road!!!

DirkVoodoo

I wouldn't mind seeing a "left turn on red" for cyclists.

Is it safer to go through a red? I think it's wrong to deal in absolutes, you can't simply say "no, never". There are always going to be cases where it will make more sense but of course it is not up to us to choose which laws suit us and which ones don't.

I always go through the red light at the top of mt. merrion avenue and the N11. I go in the cycle lane as far as the esso, then turn into the bus lane at the light so I can by-pass the (dangerous) cycle lane and bus stop. Seeing as there are nearly never any buses or taxis coming up from Mt.Merrion ave (the fact it is a straight downhill means traffic is moving slower and you have a clear line of sight) so using the bus lane has so far resulted in 2 years of safe cycling. No getting mowed down by people coming out of driveways. No hitting people at one of the busier bus stops in dublin. For me, that's safer. If I get stopped, I will hold my hands up but explain to the Garda why I do it.

Stark

petermijackson wrote: »

What about pedestrians??

Already covered. Pedestrians ignore them except when it suits.

petethedrummer

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

I wouldn't mind seeing a "left turn on red" for cyclists.

Yup, the Americans seem to be able to manage this kind of thing in cars and they're not the most courteous drivers in the world. (Also the Canadians, but they are the most courteous humans on the planet.)

DePurpereWolf

petethedrummer wrote: »

Yup, the Americans seem to be able to manage this kind of thing in cars and they're not the most courteous drivers in the world. (Also the Canadians, but they are the most courteous humans on the planet.)

As someone who has lived in the US and was too scared to cycle on the streets:

Left on red (or right on red in the US) for cars is deadly for cyclists. What cars do in the US is put there nose on the road they want to turn right on and then look. As you know, that part of the road is where cyclists drive. So if you are cycling on a road in the US you have to dodge cars that stop halfway up the road at every intersection. You are stuck between the nose and the traffic on your road.

Driving a car in the US is safe and easy because there is lots of space and there are no cyclists. Trying this here will be suicide.

As for the OP question:
Q: What are Traffic Lights there for??
A: Some are for decoration, some are actually useful.

There are certain traffic lights I ignore because I know that there is nothing coming, no pedestrians around, no cars, nothing, they just let you uselessly wait and destroy your momentum.
If there is a red light for a reason, I always stop. Unlike those fückers in cars who think it's just a real dark shade of amber.

Should cars run useless red lights then? No!
Car hits cyclist: injured or dead cyclist.
cyclist hits car: injured or dead cyclist.
As you can see: cars and cyclists are not the same. Deal with it.

petethedrummer

DePurpereWolf wrote: »

As someone who has lived in the US and was too scared to cycle on the streets:

To be honest I've never cycled a bike in the US, so it may be dangerous as hell for cyclists. I have walked and didn't see any problem with the right turn on red law. Will bow to your superior knowledge as regards cycling though.

tomasrojo

DePurpereWolf, was it California you were living in? I don't think all states have free right turns on red.

In Annie Hall, Alvy Singer says of LA: "I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light." So I presume New York doesn't permit it (or didn't).

lukester

petethedrummer wrote: »

To be honest I've never cycled a bike in the US, so it may be dangerous as hell for cyclists. I have walked and didn't see any problem with the right turn on red law. Will bow to your superior knowledge as regards cycling though.

I cycled for a few days in Vancouver where they have this rule, and never found it a problem. It's no different to cars turning at junctions.

Capt'n Midnight

the energy a cyclist needs to get back to cruising speed after a stop is about the same as travelling 300m on the flat, so stopping is even more annoying for a cyclist than for a motorist

having the line of green lights like in Denmark? would be brilliant

It would be nice to have cycle lanes that allowed you to keep going through a red since you aren't crossing anyother lanes , but can't see it happening anytime soon.

DePurpereWolf

I lived in Albany New York, You can't bike in the winter because the sides of the roads are heaps of snow. In the summer it should be okay apart from the potholes, and in the city all the traffic lights would just make me crazy, plus the problem of people putting there nose on the street first as described above. In rural areas it should be okay to cycle but those big open trucks would just scare the heebyjeebies out of me.



(To be honest, they even scare me when driving a car, I used to have a low car in the US, when one of these puppies is behind you, you see nothing but grill in your rearview mirror).

Victor

Jawgap wrote: »

Traffic lights are there to regulate your cycling:-

Wrong. Traffic lights are there to facilitate motorists and are an imposition on pedestrians and cyclists.

If there were no motorists, there would be very few traffic lights.

Piste

A few weeks ago I had the same rant, cos I'd just started cyling. Now that I'm doing it a lot more I can see how sometimes it's more practical to break a red light. Say you're cycling up a hill and suddenly the lights change, if you stop then it can be difficult to get back up to speed again, so if there's no other traffic I'll break it.

Sometime's if you're at a T junction about to turn left it can be safer to go when the light is red and there's no traffic comeing either from your right or from behind you so you can get in lane.

Bicyclegadabout

There's past posts of mine on here where I condemn any and all RLJ's.
But in the last couple of years I went and read up on how urban transport infrastructure should work, why it doesn't work etc. In particular I got into the "shared space" idea that petethedrummer mentioned earlier.

The original question was "What are Traffic Lights there for???". The answer is, imho of course, that traffic lights exist because people in large urban centres in Ireland and elsewhere don't pay enough heed to their responsibility as road users.
Using the road is a big deal. It can be very enjoyable, and certainly a lot easier riding a pack mule, but it's still a lot of responsibility. Most people just simply ****ing hate that, so they need traffic lights etc to control them, and to dilute their own responsibility.

seamus wrote: »

The point being Pete that there are plenty of situations in which it's perfectly safe to ignore a red light when you're driving a car/bus/motorbike as well. So why don't we?

Because ;
1. We're all human and liable to make mistakes and go when it's not safe
2. Most of our species are idiots.

While you might think it's safe for *you* to break the red, there are 10 others lacking the cop or presence of mind to do it safely.

A young Chinese man died this year after breaking a red light. I'm pretty sure he thought that it was perfectly safe and he had used common sense and had performed adequate safety checks.

So how in God's name do you propose that we decide who is "allowed" to break reds and who isn't - who has the cop on to do it safely and who doesn't? Or doesn't it just make more sense if everyone obeys them and avoids the chance of making a mistake and going when they shouldn't?

Have you ever been to Rome?

seamus

Bicyclegadabout wrote: »

Have you ever been to Rome?

Yep, and they're all absolutely ****e drivers with a high road fatality rate.

DBCyc

Bicyclegadabout wrote: »

The original question was "What are Traffic Lights there for???". The answer is, imho of course, that traffic lights exist because people in large urban centres in Ireland and elsewhere don't pay enough heed to their responsibility as road users.

Maybe true, but traffic lights are needed at some junctions to give traffic on minor roads a dedicated period of time to pass a junction unopposed.

In large city centres traffic lights are also required as a method of managing traffic around the city and sometimes holding traffic back outside city centres.

I think the "shared space" concept is a very good one, which can work in more lightly trafficked areas. It forces drivers to pay more attention to their surroundings and other traffic rather than driving like robots in response to green and red lights. In cities however, it is useful to be able to control traffic via a system of co-ordinated traffic lights like in Dublin & Cork.

On the bike, I obey the lights. I used to jump a few, especially when turning left. I think that it is perfectly safe sometimes to do this. But I believe that if all cyclists stopped at reds, they would be more predictable to drivers which may reduce some of the conflict and impatience between them. Ah in a perfect world...:D

Ryaner

Today was the first day I drove to work in a while and I was cursing the other cyclists on the road. Can see how other drivers would be cursing cyclist who ignore some cycle lanes. One this morning is a wide one at santry and guy decide he come inbetween the two lanes of traffic instead. Then proceeded to wobble through the redlight across the junction causing on coming traffic to have to slow down to miss him.
Its people like this that give cyclists in general a bad name!

onimpulse

blorg wrote: »

Since before 1948 anyway.

I know someone who got fined for jay walking on O'Connell st - how unlucky was that!

tunney

Ryaner wrote: »

Today was the first day I drove to work in a while and I was cursing the other cyclists on the road. Can see how other drivers would be cursing cyclist who ignore some cycle lanes. One this morning is a wide one at santry and guy decide he come inbetween the two lanes of traffic instead. Then proceeded to wobble through the redlight across the junction causing on coming traffic to have to slow down to miss him.
Its people like this that give cyclists in general a bad name!

Which cycle lane in Santry was this and at what time?

Capt'n Midnight

Victor wrote: »

Wrong. Traffic lights are there to facilitate motorists and are an imposition on pedestrians and cyclists.

If there were no motorists, there would be very few traffic lights.

facilitate ?

A lot of traffic management is about breaking up traffic / reducing the amount that arrives at a particular place at the same time.


/pedant

Ryder

The decision wether to break a light or not is up to the individual cyclist. If you make an assessment that it is safe them i think it is reasonable to do so. Obviously pavement cycling and taking priority at ped lights are definate no nos. If people think that obeying lights will engender respect from motorists then they are mistaken-its human nature to be impatient and drivers will always look on cyclists as irritants.

Malari

Ryder wrote: »

The decision wether to break a light or not is up to the individual cyclist. If you make an assessment that it is safe them i think it is reasonable to do so. Obviously pavement cycling and taking priority at ped lights are definate no nos. If people think that obeying lights will engender respect from motorists then they are mistaken-its human nature to be impatient and drivers will always look on cyclists as irritants.

Exactly. Most Irish drivers anyway. I really don't care about "giving cyclists a bad name".

Raam

Malari wrote: »

I really don't care about "giving cyclists a bad name".

thanks

DBCyc

Ryder wrote: »

its human nature to be impatient and drivers will always look on cyclists as irritants.

Then why do cyclists get much more respect and patience from motorists in other countries?

Malari

Raam wrote: »

thanks

Most welcome. But go ahead, stop at every red and see if motorists respect you any more :rolleyes:

Raam

Malari wrote: »

Most welcome. But go ahead, stop at every red and see if motorists respect you any more :rolleyes:

We'll never know for sure

Ryaner

tunney wrote: »

Which cycle lane in Santry was this and at what time?

About 8am. Here where the R132 meets the R104. Guy was turning right coming from town going on to the R104

There are three lanes on traffic and two cycle lanes. Far left cycle lane for going straight. Then the lane for straight traffic. Then another cycle lane for cyclists going right and then the two lanes of traffic. R104 has a cycle on the left too so you go from cycle lane to cycle lane.
While I disagree with mandatory cycle lanes, the one here is better than most and cars actually observe it too including the cycle stop part infront of the traffic too.

tomasrojo

Ryaner wrote: »

About 8am. Here where the R132 meets the R104. Guy was turning right coming from town going on to the R104

There are three lanes on traffic and two cycle lanes. Far left cycle lane for going straight. Then the lane for straight traffic. Then another cycle lane for cyclists going right and then the two lanes of traffic. R104 has a cycle on the left too so you go from cycle lane to cycle lane.
While I disagree with mandatory cycle lanes, the one here is better than most and cars actually observe it too including the cycle stop part infront of the traffic too.

As is typical of "facilities" in Dublin, that isn't much use. I wouldn't use that cycle lane for turning right. I'd just join the leftmost right-turning "traffic" lane. Using that cycle lane puts you in the path of motorists who suddenly decide that they really wanted to go straight on rather than turn right. Or, as in the Google image, motorists how decide that they want to go right rather than straight on (the red car in the image).

Can't see any advantage of the lane actually, unless it's to allow cyclists to go up the side and get ahead of stationary traffic and into the ASL box. Which is about as risky as your miscreant who went up the middle of the two lanes. Going up between the two lanes might be marginally safer actually, as you're less likely to get a car swapping between two lanes that are going the same way.

As for the gentleman's breaking the lights and proceeding through the traffic: breaking lights is rarely the safest thing to do, and, I agree, this isn't the best junction to practise your light-breaking on.