Traffic lights chaos??

PKH

Is it just me or do most Irish drivers take an absolute AGE to drive off
when the lights go green???

dgt

Yes

the_syco

It seems lights go green, put car into gear, take off handbrake, drive.

As opposed to car in front already being in gear, handbrake off, and go.

ljpg

thats why cars are fitted with horns,use it!!!!!

Big Davey

Considering how many people go through lights VERY late it's understandable to take off from every light with caution.

PKH

some people go through red out of pure frustration at the behaviuor of the idiots who are at the lights when they turn. Drives me maaaaddddd

monkeypants

Big Davey wrote: »

Considering how many people go through lights VERY late it's understandable to take off from every light with caution.

This.

It's common enough to see a light change and several cars sail on through. I'm already in gear and ready to go, but I also make sure that my way is clear before I start moving.

Jordan5372

its a pathetic traffic light pattern. straight from red to green, why not have amber then green like the UK. gives people time to go...

Big Davey

PKH wrote: »

some people go through red out of pure frustration at the behaviuor of the idiots who are at the lights when they turn. Drives me maaaaddddd

Going through a red light is illegal and very dangerous driving with caution is not. Have enough people not died on Irish roads already ?

PKH

I agree, red light jumping is wrong and i dont do it, but i can see why some people do. When lights go green its time to GO and not just sit there and stare in wonder.....those drivers should think of others and keep the traffic flowing. Maybe then, red light jumping might be reduced

gambithh

green lights go

amber lights go faster

Big Davey

PKH wrote: »

I agree, red light jumping is wrong and i dont do it, but i can see why some people do. When lights go green its time to GO and not just sit there and stare in wonder.....those drivers should think of others and keep the traffic flowing. Maybe then, red light jumping might be reduced

I didn't realise it was a race. I want to get from a to b as safe as possible nothing more.

JazzyJ

I don't have a problem with it most of the time, but come rush hour, a light on a minor road with a quick sequence, with dawdlers about, the hulk in me will appear.

monkeypants

PKH wrote: »

I agree, red light jumping is wrong and i dont do it, but i can see why some people do. When lights go green its time to GO and not just sit there and stare in wonder.....those drivers should think of others and keep the traffic flowing. Maybe then, red light jumping might be reduced

Still not understanding it. If the thinking is that people should depart the lights more quickly when it goes green, then:

1. The urgency to drive off when the light turns green is reduced by allowing people to continue to drive through after the light turns red and
2. Because traffic is coming in the opposite direction on the red, the people who now have the green cannot depart as it's not safe.

I think it's an Irish thing, up there with our general apathy towards timekeeping.

mikehammer67

i wait in neutral

didn't i hear it was bad for the clutch to wait 'in-gear' (as the rules of the road suggest)?


to go devils advocate

i hate it when drivers are rushing behind me

veetwin

I had relatives from the US with me in the car a few years ago around Dublin. They were both in their 80's and couldn't get over how slow the Irish were off the lights.

Having said that I was in Manhattan recently and they are on the horn even before the lights go green.

Use the horn here to wake up dawdlers and they look at you like you're some sort of child molester:rolleyes:

mikehammer67

might cause an accident

impatient fools blowing the horn at lights

HandsomeDan

I didn't realize we were in a race :pac:

At lights with short intervals it can be mildy annoying, but starting a thread about it is a bit...

keithsfleet

If I'm second in line at a red i'll give the car in front roughly about 2 seconds (could be less to be honest) and if I don't see their brake lights disappear I'll always, without fail, blip the horn.
No harm no foul, a quick reminder that their not the only people on the road.

naughtysmurf

I find myself constantly behind people who seem to be waiting for a particular shade of green
I dont expect their moving off to be instantainious with a green light but there seems to be a fair few drivers out there who take an excessive amount of time to move off, I reckon a lot of them are just daydreaming

Big Davey

keithsfleet wrote: »

If I'm second in line at a red i'll give the car in front roughly about 2 seconds (could be less to be honest) and if I don't see their brake lights disappear I'll always, without fail, blip the horn.
No harm no foul, a quick reminder that their not the only people on the road.

Do you drive a white transit ?

keithsfleet

Nope a jap import with the girliest high pitched horn you'll ever hear.

I wouldn't aggressively hold the horn, literally just a blip.

monkeypants

veetwin wrote: »

I had relatives from the US with me in the car a few years ago around Dublin. They were both in their 80's and couldn't get over how slow the Irish were off the lights.

Having said that I was in Manhattan recently and they are on the horn even before the lights go green.

The Americans are helped by the fact that most of their cars are automatic. No fiddling around with gear changes necessary. However, because they are so quick off at the lights, they don't have as much red light jumping because the odds are that there'd be a serious accident. Here we're slow off on the green because there's a change of a collision with someone jumping a red light and our tardiness encourages the RLJing. Chicken and egg scenario.

I mentioned Irish timekeeping before and there's something to add to that; the folks who drive while being completely oblivious to all that's going on around them. Sometimes you might observe them with a finger up their own to the knuckle in full view. The motoring equivalent of the people you meet ambling around supermarkets.

Solair

It's largely down to people driving cars with manual gear boxes and a lot of people (as per their driving instructors' teaching) tend to take the car out of gear and put on the handbrake at lights, even where they're only stopped for a few seconds.

I find countries that mostly drive automatics are the only places where you don't see this, and maybe Italy

sentient_6

I'd hardly call it chaos.

CiniO

My experience shows me that in smaller towns people generally pay very little attention to light.
Plenty of people stopping on green to let someone go or cross the street.
And the same amount of drivers going through red light. (and I don't mean trying to catch late amber to make it before red, but just purely going on red light without even noticing there were some traffic light).

All this can be seen everyday in Westport.
It's a small town with narrow streets, and speeds are minimal, so I didn't see a crash there yet, but generally from someone coming from big city where running through the red light = death it's very interesting experience.

Solair

Yeah, I'd tend to agree.

I'd actually rate Irish traffic lights as pretty sensible and generally observed pretty well too.

I spent time in Paris and people just blatantly shoot through lights. It very rarely happens here, I know it does happen, but it's not something that every second car does.

Also the layouts and sequences of lights here are generally pretty easy to comprehend and fool proof. You get some pretty bizarre setups in some countries with all sorts of weird rules about turns and yeliding that differ from junction to junction depending on signs etc!

Overall, I'd say Irish (and also British) traffic lights are anything but chaos. We're just slow to take off.

CiniO

Solair wrote: »

You get some pretty bizarre setups in some countries with all sorts of weird rules about turns and yeliding that differ from junction to junction depending on signs etc!

Fact that you don't know those rules, doesn't make them bizarre.
It pretty much unified rules all over Continent, and they are very easy, once you know them.

For someone from Continent many Irish rules of the road might be bizarre in the same way.

OldmanMondeo

2,500 revs, car in first, clutch holding the car at the ready, then the light goes green, drop the clutch, smoke the tyres, nice big 11's up the road. See Ya SUCKERS!!!!!!







I may not actually do this, in fact I don't

650Ginge

ljpg wrote: »

thats why cars are fitted with horns,use it!!!!!

That's not why they are fitted with horns.

garclo

it's frustrating when you're in a hurry or you drive for a living so always working to a deadline. some people seem surprised when the light goes green........what did you think was going to happen? I think we need to switch to the british traffic light sequence. it'll give some people a bit more time to get the car in gear and be ready to move.

Solair

CiniO wrote: »

Fact that you don't know those rules, doesn't make them bizarre.
It pretty much unified rules all over Continent, and they are very easy, once you know them.

For someone from Continent many Irish rules of the road might be bizarre in the same way.

They're FAR from unified!

Some countries allow turns on red, some don't. Some have special little signals to explain when they're allowed and when they aren't.

There are plenty of other national quirks too.

shinkansen

Jordan5372 wrote: »

its a pathetic traffic light pattern. straight from red to green, why not have amber then green like the UK. gives people time to go...

alas, even idiots here in the uk are just as bad.

ljpg

650Ginge wrote: »

That's not why they are fitted with horns.

well if you want to split hairs then technically your right,so what do you do if your sitting behind someone and the lights green??????? get out of the car,tap the window and politely ask them to "move on please", i don't think so.......

djimi

Solair wrote: »

It's largely down to people driving cars with manual gear boxes and a lot of people (as per their driving instructors' teaching) tend to take the car out of gear and put on the handbrake at lights, even where they're only stopped for a few seconds.

I find countries that mostly drive automatics are the only places where you don't see this, and maybe Italy

It takes less than 2 seconds to put a car in gear and release the handbrake. If you're watching the traffic (and quite often you can see the other set of lights) then you can gauge when to put the car in gear before your light turns green.

If I'm second in the queue I'll give the car in front about 5 seconds, then they will get a wake up call. Nothing more frustrating than when you can see them fiddling about in the car in front and not paying attention to the lights.

bbuzz

monkeypants wrote: »

they don't have as much red light jumping because the odds are that there'd be a serious accident.

More likely to get a fine from the red light cameras at every junction.

Supergurrier

Leave the house 5 minutes earlier ?

dr.fuzzenstein

Big Davey wrote: »

I didn't realise it was a race. I want to get from a to b as safe as possible nothing more.

That does not mean staring at a green light for 5 seconds, wrestling with the handbrake another 5, selecting 1st gear, another 5 and them moving off eeeeevvvvveeeeerrr ssssoooooo sssllloooowwwlllyyyyy from the light.
You could also have it safely in gear, with the handbrake safely off and be safely ready to move when it is safe to do so. Safely, off course.
See? Not that hard.

PKH

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

That does not mean staring at a green light for 5 seconds, wrestling with the handbrake another 5, selecting 1st gear, another 5 and them moving off eeeeevvvvveeeeerrr ssssoooooo sssllloooowwwlllyyyyy from the light.
You could also have it safely in gear, with the handbrake safely off and be safely ready to move when it is safe to do so. Safely, off course.
See? Not that hard.

Dr Fussenstein

Well said !!!
Your description of those bloody dawdlers is perfect

dutopia

Jordan5372 wrote: »

its a pathetic traffic light pattern. straight from red to green, why not have amber then green like the UK. gives people time to go...

That is such a good point. Why the hell don't we have that here? It seems like a no-brainer.

dutopia

I drive an automatic and I'm always fast off the line. N to D and then takes off quickly. Or sometimes I just have it in D and can take off even faster.

dudara

The problem lies more with the delayed reaction down the line of traffic. It's relatively OK if the first person is a little slow. You'd imagine that would give everyone in the queue a few seconds to be ready. But no, there's a cumulative delay which all adds up. Why can't all drivers in the queue watch the lights and react accordingly?

Dartz

This is where electric handbrakes win.

Bonk into gear and then away.


Some light sequences are horrific. Like trying to get a right turn at Chapelizod... where it doesn't stop traffic coming towards you and gives you maybe 5 seconds to actually make the turn so you've either go to go for it and try to slot in, completely ignore the eventual red-light because there's a few seconds until the cars on the right get a green and the ones ahead stop at the same time.

Or wait another three minutes for it to cycle around.

And that's if traffic is light.

Shield

I'm a big fan of the red light which then turns to both red and orange together, giving the motorist time to get it in 1st gear, get the handbrake off (by which time you now have a green light) and you should be away without delay.

I really miss that when I cross the border and I've been caught off guard with the red going straight to green and cue impatient guy behind me beeping after 0.7 of a second!

corktina

Jordan5372 wrote: »

its a pathetic traffic light pattern. straight from red to green, why not have amber then green like the UK. gives people time to go...

that would make it worse....people would still wait for green which would appear later than now...

corktina

OldmanMondeo wrote: »

2,500 revs, car in first, clutch holding the car at the ready, then the light goes green, drop the clutch, smoke the tyres, nice big 11's up the road. See Ya SUCKERS!!!!!!







I may not actually do this, in fact I don't

not in a Mondeo anyway :-)

monkeypants

Shield wrote: »

I really miss that when I cross the border and I've been caught off guard with the red going straight to green and cue impatient guy behind me beeping after 0.7 of a second!

Maybe In Dublin, but I'm the border counties they don't understand those wee coloured lights at all.

rocky

7 seconds away
just as long as I'll stay...


I'll be waiting....


and beeping...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usp1ygYS9TQ

Supergurrier

Feckin HATE that roundabout

charlemont

I saw a very elderly woman driving an Almera with German plates on Coburg Street about two weeks ago, She was beeping the horn within seconds of the lights going green as the morons in front of her were obviously still making up there minds whether to go or not.. Fair play to her I thought. Fatherland efficiency.