Breaking red light

justback83

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this - the past couple of mornings I've been driving through town (around 7 am) and usually turn left from Merchant's Quay to Bridge Street Upper. I've seen several cars just sailing through a red light there and I was actually beeped from behind to do the same this morning!

Northern Monkey

This pretty much happens at every set of lights in Dublin. Usual story of traffic laws not being enforced results in a lot of piss takers. The junction of tara street and the quays is really bad as a lot of the time cars plough through when the pedestrians have started to cross.

Gongoozler

Yeah noticed myself in the past few months that it's getting worse. It'd a surprise to see a driver not do it now.

As you say, Tara's St / the quays is awful,iI'm coming from Westmorland St and there's always at least three vehicles still coming once the lights have gone green.

desbrook

Just remember if you get pulled over for breaking the red light the guy beeping will be no defence. You'll get the points and he only MIGHT get a bol***king from the Garda .

Aard

Same story on the north quays at Capel St. One or two cars will always break the lights, often ending up blocking the pedestrian crossing to boot.

justback83

desbrook wrote: »

Just remember if you get pulled over for breaking the red light the guy beeping will be no defence. You'll get the points and he only MIGHT get a bol***king from the Garda .

I didn't move!

I may have been unclear about this - they drivers weren't breaking a yellow light or skimming through at the last second - they were blatantly driving through a light that had been red before they even got to the junction!

dulpit

There are 2 junctions in Cork that I drive through a lot that have 2 lanes, one for straight on and one for right turn. In both cases there is a red/green arrow for straight ahead, and then the usual red/green light for all to go. The arrow appears much more frequently than the bulb, and yet the amount of people that seem to think that once the green arrow (for straight ahead) is up you can also turn right is bonkers.

Macy0161

This can't be right - only cyclists break red lights...

I don't actually think it's a new thing - as long as I've been commuting in Dublin it's been an issue - when I think I've been a bit of "amber gambler", I'm always amazed at how many have piled on through behind me. As with everything, it comes down to enforcement, and it's actually an easy enough one to enforce with camera's too. Hopefully the roll out on the Luas junctions will lead to them on other junctions too.

Alongside that, they should look at modifying the sequences, to give Red-Amber-Green, and avoid the frustration (justified or not) of people when cars at the top of the queue don't pull off on the green. It could be imagined on my part, but traffic lights in this state don't seem as efficient as they could be in maintaining traffic flows.

corktina

dulpit wrote: »

There are 2 junctions in Cork that I drive through a lot that have 2 lanes, one for straight on and one for right turn. In both cases there is a red/green arrow for straight ahead, and then the usual red/green light for all to go. The arrow appears much more frequently than the bulb, and yet the amount of people that seem to think that once the green arrow (for straight ahead) is up you can also turn right is bonkers.

Brian Boru Bridge? A lot of people haven't noticed that you can't turn right from the middle lane any more (on to Merchants Quay...confusing eh...the Cork version)

TheBandicoot

Semi-related, I've noticed that most pedestrian lights in Dublin city centre give pedestrians a fairly short green phase, and then an amber phase that lasts as much as twice as long. Is there a reason for that? From what I can see it just leads to drivers disengaging the handbrake and creeping forward into the crossing when they see the lights go amber, expecting themselves to get the green soon.

dulpit

corktina wrote: »

Brian Boru Bridge? A lot of people haven't noticed that you can't turn right from the middle lane any more (on to Merchants Quay...confusing eh...the Cork version)

No, the turn onto Wellington Bridge coming from Washington Street is one, and the other is turning onto North Gate Bridge...

Hilly Bill

Im sure its in the Highway code book that a red light means At least another 3 cars can pass .

Macy0161

TheBandicoot wrote: »

Semi-related, I've noticed that most pedestrian lights in Dublin city centre give pedestrians a fairly short green phase, and then an amber phase that lasts as much as twice as long. Is there a reason for that? From what I can see it just leads to drivers disengaging the handbrake and creeping forward into the crossing when they see the lights go amber, expecting themselves to get the green soon.

It's because pedestrians will keep joining the crossing on amber, so the solution is extend that rather than deal with the issue!

Carawaystick

TheBandicoot wrote: »

Semi-related, I've noticed that most pedestrian lights in Dublin city centre give pedestrians a fairly short green phase, and then an amber phase that lasts as much as twice as long. Is there a reason for that? From what I can see it just leads to drivers disengaging the handbrake and creeping forward into the crossing when they see the lights go amber, expecting themselves to get the green soon.

The amber man is on from the last person to start crossing until they cross
You're only supposed to start crossing while the green man is lit
The amber man time is to allow slower pedestrians enough time to cross.

So if it takes an aul fella with a walking stick 15 seconds to cross, and a young athletic one 4 seconds to cross
And there is 5 seconds green man time,

The auld fella can arrive and start crossing at 4.9 sec green man time and cross while the yellow man is lit

The young one will have crossed and be gone, but the long crossing time isn't for her

Chris_5339762

Its getting worse, thats for sure. Light goes red (fully red) and one if not two cars will still go through. Happens everyday during rush hour. Now, there are a few junctions with ridiculously poorly designed sequences ( turning left here for instance) and in those cases its hard to see why people WOULDN'T break the red light, illegal as it may be.

Its twofold... people being impatient and breaking the law because they know they won't get caught and also terribly poor light sequencing.

Irish Steve

The underlying issue is that even when it's wrong, or being abused, no one in authority cares enough to do something to change it.

There's a staggered junction in Ashbourne which is light controlled, at Dunnes, and coming from Dunnes, there are 2 lanes, one arrowed for left turn, and the other for right. There's also a filter arrow for left turn. The problem is that there is also a staggered (left then immediately right) option that goes into the Supervalue car park.

The problem comes when the left filter arrow comes on, and there is a car in the left lane that is going to Supervalue, in that when the left filter comes on, the traffic inbound from Slane direction still has a green light, and there have been numerous near misses as a vehicle comes out of the Dunnes road and goes straight across to Supervalue, oblivious of the fact that the lane of traffic they are going through has a green light.

It's been reported to the RSA, and the Gardai, and the local authority, but it's not been changed, the ONLY solution is to remove the left filter, and have both lanes go on the "full" green, which should be possible with about 10 minutes of programming time on the light control box.

One of these days, someone that's not local and doesn't realise the risks is going to be seriously injured or killed, and if that happens, who is to blame? The driver that went the "wrong" way on the filter, the driver that was continuing through a junction with a green light, or the designer that set the junction up that way in the first place, or the RSA official that said "it's not our remit", or the myriad of other civil or public servants who have ignored the reports made to them about a clear and specific traffic risk?

Even a simple board on the lights that says, "No route to Supervalue on filter" might be enough to prevent a possible tragedy, but getting it put there seems to be beyond any of the bodies that are supposedly responsible for road safety.

Bepolite

The whole of the Quays is replete with this. Every single junction, almost every single time. People simply don't understand amber means stop. The frustration builds because its so busy. Additionally people don't know how yellow boxes work and of course the guards are no where to be seen.

Part of the issue is our stupid traffic light sequence that we all subconsciously abuse. The fact that it takes people anywhere from 0.5 seconds to six and a half months to respond to the green light means that people know its 'safe' to cross on amber and chancing it on red.

What makes me laugh about all this is we've gone to the cost of installing special cyclist lights to give them a head start. Seriously the people that makes these decisions should be sacked. There is a very simple solution. Adopt the UK style traffic light sequence where the previous junction goes red before the other junction goes Red and Amber. Allow cyclists to move on Red and Amber and cars to go on green. Rigorously enforce this with cameras and massive fines and points.

SteM

See this happening along the N81 from Tallaght to the M50 every day too. Some cars fly through late on orange and they will generally be followed by 1 or sometimes 2 cars. Don't understand why people chance it to be ghonest.

Bepolite

SteM wrote: »

See this happening along the N81 from Tallaght to the M50 every day too. Some cars fly through late on orange and they will generally be followed by 1 or sometimes 2 cars. Don't understand why people chance it to be ghonest.

Enforcement - people will always chance things, no matter how stupid, no matter how small gain there is to the risk involved.

dulpit

Bepolite wrote: »

There is a very simple solution. Adopt the UK style traffic light sequence where the previous junction goes red before the other junction goes Red and Amber. Allow cyclists to move on Red and Amber and cars to go on green. Rigorously enforce this with cameras and massive fines and points.

This +++++

TheChizler

dulpit wrote: »

No, the turn onto Wellington Bridge coming from Washington Street is one, and the other is turning onto North Gate Bridge...

Yes! Guessed the Wellington bridge one, I win. Coming from probys quay to Crawford is another, I suppose here that's explained by the red light for going right being blocked by signage until the last second.

It happens a lot at the Swords Road/Santry Avenue junction and it can be very dangerous there.

When crossing at the Swords Road side, you'll first get a green to move into the island in the middle of the road, so Santry Avenue is behind you. Quite often, drivers will break the red, so when you get the green to cross from the centre island, you really need to check that someone isn't turning right behind you. I always make sure to look behind me and not take the pedestrian green as gospel.

Del2005

Bepolite wrote: »

There is a very simple solution. Adopt the UK style traffic light sequence where the previous junction goes red before the other junction goes Red and Amber. Allow cyclists to move on Red and Amber and cars to go on green. Rigorously enforce this with cameras and massive fines and points.

There's no need for that at all. Just enforce our current system and it'd be fine. For some reason people in this country love to make new laws when we already have perfectly fine laws which aren't enforced.

BTW the few times I've been in the UK a lot of motorists started moving into the junction when the the Red-Amber came on.