Why do pedestrian lights take 1 min to change

rom

Why does every light in Ireland you press it and 1 min later is goes red. Should the timer be after so it can't be pressed too often. This results in me running pressing a light, j-walking and the light going red.

walshb

This thread has potential!

punisher5112

rom wrote: »

Why does every light in Ireland you press it and 1 min later is goes red. Should the timer be after so it can't be pressed too often. This results in me running pressing a light, j-walking and the light going red.

Go a route with no lights or do what I see a lot of lunatics doing and run all the way down middle of the road.

Jan Laco

So you are complaining that the pedestrian light activates after you press it? Don't press it then.

Zaph

A lot of them don't have a timer at all, just a button. It's there to make people feel that they have control over the lights, but really they're only going to change when they're timed to change. Do a search for placebo buttons and you'll see that they're also common in lifts, on trains, etc.

punisher5112

Jan Laco wrote: »

So you are complaining that the pedestrian light activates after you press it? Don't press it then.

That's what I do I read the road and traffic and also get to know light sequences if applicable.

Utdfan20titles

rom wrote: »

Why does every light in Ireland you press it and 1 min later is goes red. Should the timer be after so it can't be pressed too often. This results in me running pressing a light, j-walking and the light going red.

Can somebody help me?
I appear to be lost. I was looking for the Athletics/Running forum.

Wild Garlic

I once knew a girl with breasts on her back. Great for dancing with she was.

rom

Zaph wrote: »

A lot of them don't have a timer at all, just a button. It's there to make people feel that they have control over the lights, but really they're only going to change when they're timed to change. Do a search for placebo buttons and you'll see that they're also common in lifts, on trains, etc.

Not true. I know some lights that don't change at all unless the button is pressed. The issue is the 1 min delay on an open road. Its pointless as if there is a gap in traffic in that min I cross the road and then the light goes red and stops the traffic. There are some lights that when you press they go red straight away but they are rare.

I have high hopes for this thread to even surpass the great puddle thread of 2015.

kit3

Try to cross near a school - lights change straight away

punisher5112

Kildare st. At the dail are or were the quickest and would go green but as soon as pressed again it would change again.

Wondered why as no politician ever uses them as they all drive through gates.

rom

kit3 wrote: »

Try to cross near a school - lights change straight away

That is true but there defo is something up with them in most other places.

smash

rom wrote: »

That is true but there defo is something up with them in most other places.

Granting road users the preferred usage of the road over a pedestrian who wishes to cross the road does not mean that there's something up. It just means that the road users are the priority. Offer to keep traffic flowing at a reasonable rate.

rom

smash wrote: »

Granting road users the preferred usage of the road over a pedestrian who wishes to cross the road does not mean that there's something up. It just means that the road users are the priority. Offer to keep traffic flowing at a reasonable rate.

Scenario 1:
Press light, timer counts down 2 min, Light goes red. Press light again, 2 mins wait again, light red. Say total 6 mins.

Scenario 2:
Press light goes red straight away, timer starts and counts down 2 mins before light is allowed to go red again. Someone pressed it during this time and the light went red.


Scenario 1 from idle gets two cycles of the lights in for walkers or runners in
1min for light change
2min wait
1min for light change
2min wait

Scenario 2 from idle get two cycle of the lights in for
2min wait
1 min for change
2min for wait
1min for change

4 vs 6 mins. The impact to the road users is exactly the same under the two scenarios. Having the walker/runner wait before the change of the lights rather than time after the last change of the lights seems crazy to me.

smash

Traffic lights are programmed to allow a minimal disruption to the flow of traffic as to not cause congestion. Pedestrian controlled light changes can cause serious disruption to this flow. Waiting a minute or two isn't going to kill you, it could potentially cause huge traffic issues when people are suddenly hitting every red light because the flow is now out of sync.

Just jog on the spot or something :pac:

ED E

These lights are manged by the councils traffic control center. Traffic. Their job is to keep cars flowing ok, they have little to no concern for peds and cyclists.

Chivito550

Posted in wrong forum by mistake and still not realised your error?

Del2005

smash wrote: »

Traffic lights are programmed to allow a minimal disruption to the flow of traffic as to not cause congestion. Pedestrian controlled light changes can cause serious disruption to this flow. Waiting a minute or two isn't going to kill you, it could potentially cause huge traffic issues when people are suddenly hitting every red light because the flow is now out of sync.

Just jog on the spot or something :pac:

In some countries traffic lights are designed to enable traffic flow, with green wave if driving below the limit. In Ireland traffic lights are designed to annoy everyone, no green wave for vehicles and stupid delays for pedestrians leading to jay walking like in the OP.

Peterx

Chivito550 wrote: »

Posted in wrong forum by mistake and still not realised your error?

You need to look at the bigger picture Chivito550 (insert smiley face of your choice here)

Rom can't run as cars are in Rom's way. Very relevant to a running forum.

Ultimately this minor 2 minute wait problem is a direct result of decades of policy favouring car-powered locomotion over human powered locomotion.
Both walking and cycling are seen as something people only do when they are young, poor or eccentric.
This needs to change.

I walk the young lad to his creche in the morning and all I can see is blasted cars cutting off our possibility of flowing nicely to the creche.
We need green waves, green routes, dare I say it, 19 Green Tds forcing a minority government to govern for the people, not the profits.
Was that a rant?

Skatedude

where did you get the 1 minute from?. some of the pedestrian lights near me will take a few minutes to change and some take longer than 5 minutes.

PaulieC

rom wrote: »

The issue is the 1 min delay on an open road. Its pointless as if there is a gap in traffic in that min I cross the road and then the light goes red and stops the traffic.

If you know this then why press the button in the first place ?

You don't need to go to the internet for everything you know...

Chivito550

Peterx wrote: »

You need to look at the bigger picture Chivito550 (insert smiley face of your choice here)

Rom can't run as cars are in Rom's way. Very relevant to a running forum.

Ultimately this minor 2 minute wait problem is a direct result of decades of policy favouring car-powered locomotion over human powered locomotion.
Both walking and cycling are seen as something people only do when they are young, poor or eccentric.
This needs to change.

I walk the young lad to his creche in the morning and all I can see is blasted cars cutting off our possibility of flowing nicely to the creche.
We need green waves, green routes, dare I say it, 19 Green Tds forcing a minority government to govern for the people, not the profits.
Was that a rant?

Better served in the transport forum. I follow that one a fair bit. Lots of knowledgeable posters there. This topic has about 1% relevance to running. May as well discuss low pressure patterns and levels of precipitation year on year here, as the weather is relevant to running eh?

ThisRegard

Am I the only one when out running not to bother with pressing the button for pedestrian lights and just dash across the road, dazzling oncoming motorists with my perfect form to the point where they slow to admire it, and therefore making such a manoeuvre safe?

PaulieC

ThisRegard wrote: »

Am I the only one when out running not to bother with pressing the button for pedestrian lights and just dash across the road, dazzling oncoming motorists with my perfect form to the point where they slow to admire it, and therefore making such a manoeuvre safe?

I press the button, cross as soon as there's a gap and then run off laughing while the motorists have to stop for nothing.

I don't actually, that's a pretty c***ish thing to do.

Peterx

Chivito550 wrote: »

Better served in the transport forum. I follow that one a fair bit. Lots of knowledgeable posters there. This topic has about 1% relevance to running. May as well discuss low pressure patterns and levels of precipitation year on year here, as the weather is relevant to running eh?

As it happens the weather is extremely relevant to my running and some days the only 3 minutes of TV I watch is from 9.26pm.
I believe it is fine to have discussion around the running topic in the running forum that isn't 100% relevant to 400m laps of the track - to continue with your adding examples which are over the top.

Enforcing rigidity on allowable topics can stifle interesting discussion.
I come on here for both entertainment and information.

Completely off forum topic will be dealt with by the volunteer moderators, all hail our voluntary overlords.

ThisRegard

The keeping the ART forum to being solely on anything to do with putting one foot in front of the other, to the point of being anally attentive, is tedious at this stage.

Any sort of discussion or amusement that they see as being off topic raises the ire of some people for some inexplicable reason.

rom

Yes it probably just that its pro car but the light normally gets pressed anyways. When I was in NY the lights and traffic was on a loop and would count down for busy streets. Now is you go around any city in Ireland you have people j-walking as they can't get across the road at the lights. In NY you will get knocked down if you try that or possibly a ticket. The Irish system for this does not work but in other places it does. Promote j-walking then you have people crossing the road not a junctions and when the lights are green which happens on every main street in Ireland. That is what causes traffic.

Gavlor

I had sugar free muesli and a banana for breakfast in a yellow bowl.

seamus

Yeah, very rare I'd wait for the ped lights before crossing. If they're not already green or about to go green, then I'll keep running down the path until I find a suitable gap in traffic.

Doesn't work obviously when running somewhere you don't know at all, but for familiar routes be aware of when and where you're going to need to move to the other side of the road and then take whatever opportunity comes your way instead of waiting to find a set of pedestrian lights.

Running in the city centre is a bit of a pain, you pretty much have to wait for the ped lights because there's too much traffic, but outside of that a bit of planning ahead goes a long way.

walshb

I knew this thread had potential!

Dubgal72

Now now. I think some of you may need to watch this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEssgMQ1O_k

average_runner

Peterx wrote: »

As it happens the weather is extremely relevant to my running and some days the only 3 minutes of TV I watch is from 9.26pm.
I believe it is fine to have discussion around the running topic in the running forum that isn't 100% relevant to 400m laps of the track - to continue with your adding examples which are over the top.

Enforcing rigidity on allowable topics can stifle interesting discussion.
I come on here for both entertainment and information.

Completely off forum topic will be dealt with by the volunteer moderators, all hail our voluntary overlords.

Why not use the rainfall radar on your mobile and then use boards weather man in the weather forum, way better

Peterx

average_runner wrote: »

Why not use the rainfall radar on your mobile and then use boards weather man in the weather forum, way better

I have yr.no as one of my favourites, ditto rainfall radar, I even paid real money for the weatherpro app on the phone. I just like the RTE news and weather at 9pm.

Krusty_Clown

I have a pet peeve... Zebra/pelican crossings. I don't believe that they're relevant in this modern age, as cars no longer see the need to stop (or even slow down) for them, so they create an artificial (but entirely false) sense of safety and regulation. It would be safer to remove them altogether, as at least people are forced to wait for a break in traffic, rather than stepping into the firing line.

Same thing seems to be happening with pedestrian lights (cars running the red light 5 seconds after it has changed), but right now, I'll stick to the animal crossings. Too many rants and the thread will get locked.

walshb

Peterx wrote: »

You need to look at the bigger picture Chivito550 (insert smiley face of your choice here)

Rom can't run as cars are in Rom's way. Very relevant to a running forum.

Ultimately this minor 2 minute wait problem is a direct result of decades of policy favouring car-powered locomotion over human powered locomotion.
Both walking and cycling are seen as something people only do when they are young, poor or eccentric.
This needs to change.

I walk the young lad to his creche in the morning and all I can see is blasted cars cutting off our possibility of flowing nicely to the creche.
We need green waves, green routes, dare I say it, 19 Green Tds forcing a minority government to govern for the people, not the profits.
Was that a rant?

Running on roads that cars are using should be banned!

degsie

Why not switch from running to cycling, then you can ignore lights/crossings/give-ways at will....

RayCun

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Same thing seems to be happening with pedestrian lights (cars running the red light 5 seconds after it has changed),

how difficult would it be to have a camera on the lights that would catch people going through them like this?

Krusty_Clown

RayCun wrote: »

how difficult would it be to have a camera on the lights that would catch people going through them like this?

Very easy. Have the German fine to prove it.

uvox

"J-walking" What's that? That ludicrous jogging on the spot that real runners don't do? Oh. Right. Jaywalking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking

The times actually vary a lot more than 1 minute. Try the one outside of the Meath Hospital in Dublin 8. I presume it's to let the hordes of cyclists who don't obey the lights to clear the crossing.

Skatedude

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I have a pet peeve... Zebra/pelican crossings. I don't believe that they're relevant in this modern age, as cars no longer see the need to stop (or even slow down) for them, so they create an artificial (but entirely false) sense of safety and regulation. It would be safer to remove them altogether, as at least people are forced to wait for a break in traffic, rather than stepping into the firing line.

Same thing seems to be happening with pedestrian lights (cars running the red light 5 seconds after it has changed), but right now, I'll stick to the animal crossings. Too many rants and the thread will get locked.

AFAIK the pedestrian crossings are only legal if they have both the flashing lights and the road marking, most of them in Dublin do not. not worth arguing with a two tonne car over who had right of way. but dublin road design is very poor in a lot of places.

Krusty_Clown

Skatedude wrote: »

AFAIK the pedestrian crossings are only legal if they have both the flashing lights and the road marking, most of them in Dublin do not. not worth arguing with a two tonne car over who had right of way. but dublin road design is very poor in a lot of places.

Yep, and that makes things worse. Creates a false sense of safety, without any form of legal requirement for vehicles to slow down. They should be completely eradicated. Painted over. Then when a child arrives at that point in the road, they won't be fooled into thinking that there is some expectation that the traffic might stop.

The basic idea is that once a pedestrian steps onto a pelican crossing, cars have to yield right of way. However, a pedestrian should not step on a crossing, if doing so will create a hazard (in other words, if the car has not slowed down for the crossing). It made a lot more sense in the 50s and 60s, when there wasn't as much traffic on the road, and it didn't travel quite as fast.