Traffic Lights

joolsveer

I don't know if this is the best forum for my gripe but here goes.

Why do local authorities here place traffic lights where they cannot be seen by the driver of the first car in the queue if this car is stopped at the white line? This is particularly noticeable at pedestrian traffic lights. It results in drivers behind sounding their "audible warning devices" to get the first car to move on.

In many cases turn left filter lights cannot be seen in the same scenario because they are not repeated in the driver's field of vision.
I notice that on the mainland (in France in particular) there are small repeater lights located on the traffic light pole which are angled towards the first driver in the queue. This removes the problem. Why can we not learn from other countries' good ideas?

Surely the idea of traffic lights is to act as a signal to drivers so they should be visible!

ando

just don’t stop so close to the line? have a bit of common sense

joolsveer

ando wrote:

just don’t stop so close to the line? have a bit of common sense

If the lights are triggered by a loop in the road stopping back from the lights will ensure they do not change to green!

Silvera

sounds like a good idea to me joolsveer (i.e. repeater lights) !

I too have noticed how difficult it can be to see the green light when you stop where you are supposed to.


By not stopping close to the white line, you could in turn be causing vehicles behind you to unnecessarily block yellow box junctions, side roads, etc etc

I'm sure it's down to cost and lack of foresight (as usual!!) why councils don't put up repeater lights.

Most lights could also do with covers over each light to shade them from the glare of sunlight !

....... for the rare occassions when we do have sunlight that is

joolsveer

Silvera wrote:

sounds like a good idea to me joolsveer (i.e. repeater lights) !

I too have noticed how difficult it can be to see the green light when you stop where you are supposed to.


By not stopping close to the white line, you could in turn be causing vehicles behind you to unnecessarily block yellow box junctions, side roads, etc etc

I'm sure it's down to cost and lack of foresight (as usual!!) why councils don't put up repeater lights.

I would say that it is down to a lack of common sense!!!

MrPudding

They have a cool thing in France. Half way up the pole there is a miniature set of lights, these are angled so they are visible to the first driver in the queue. Very handy and does away with the need for additional sets of lights. (Hmmm, just thinking, is that what you mean by repeater lights?)

MrP

mike65

There's a good example of this at the Browns Rd junction on the Cork rd in Waterford, when going out of town if you stop at the line the lights can't be seen proberly. My main bug-bear about lights though is how fupping long they take to change.

I'm booting this thread to Commuting/Transport, more appropriate I think.

Mike.

joolsveer

MrPudding wrote:

They have a cool thing in France. Half way up the pole there is a miniature set of lights, these are angled so they are visible to the first driver in the queue. Very handy and does away with the need for additional sets of lights. (Hmmm, just thinking, is that what you mean by repeater lights?)

MrP

Yes that's what I meant.

is_that_so

On a slightly different note, does anyone know if intelligent traffic lights are used anywhere here? They are designed to operate using fuzzy logic. I have heard of them in use in Canada. IMO the logic applied to most sets of traffic lights in this country defies all human logic . Here's a piece on it Fuzzy Logic Traffic Lights Most interesting part is the graph showing the conventional lights' throughput. Enough said. :eek:

mike65

Waterford has the "fuzzy logic" system in place since last year, it does make a difference esp when its quiet. The system means the main road will have green 90% of the time until things get busy. While if you approach the junction from a side road you don't have to wait more than a few seconds.

Mike.

is_that_so

Good to hear. So is that by design i.e. a coherent planning policy? And is that policy only local to Waterford ?

mike65

Coherent planning???? I dont know to be honest, not sure if other cities/towns have it yet but as I visit Cork and Limerick every week I'll have to see if I can spot "Fuzzy Logic" type traffic movement.

Mike.

Flukey

You'll often see that lights problem at a T junction, where you are coming up the main body of the T. There will be the filter light on the lights on the corner, but not on the set of lights straight in front. Even if a car is behind the line, drivers will normally be more likely to look at the lights straight in front of them, rather than the ones nearer to them on the corner. The filter light should be on both sets.

shoegirl

It shouldn't be a problem as long as you use common sense and stop back far enough to see the lights, so I was told when I learned to drive.

The main problems with traffic lights I see is:

a) folks travelling too fast to stop
b) people who don't understand when the green light is split (eg. when one light is for going straight on, and a second for going right for example)
c) those who think pedestrian lights "don't count" unless there's somebody actually crossing the road
d) those who ignore lights situated immediatlely around the corner (compound lights???)
and finally, my favourite parasite, especially common around Cork,
e) motorists who don't understand the difference between a red light and a green light

All the lights in Dublin Corpo area are programmeable by the way, I had a pal who worked for them one summer as a student. Apparently they could remotely make changes to the lights but couldn't save them permanently!

is_that_so

shoegirl wrote:

All the lights in Dublin Corpo area are programmeable by the way, I had a pal who worked for them one summer as a student. Apparently they could remotely make changes to the lights but couldn't save them permanently!

Agree with rest of your post. Exactly my point , no bloody logic to the "programming"

"Let's change this one to 2 secs and see how many people we can p*ss off"

joolsveer

shoegirl wrote:

It shouldn't be a problem as long as you use common sense and stop back far enough to see the lights, so I was told when I learned to drive.

The point I am making is that it is a problem and has been a problem for the last 29 years I have been driving. What exacerbates the problem is the proliferation of traffic lights - even at roundabouts! By the way I learned to drive on the northside of Cork so maybe I developed a differnt sytle of driving there.

antoinolachtnai

There is a traffic light on the south end of Westland Row in Dublin 2, where Someone has actually erected a pole directly in the path between the driver of the second car and the traffic light. It seems extremely dangerous.

DubTony

A few years ago Eoin Keegan was on RTE radio's Liveline. Members of the public rang in with their suggestions as to how to help traffic flow better in Dublin.
Many suggestions were put to Keegan including the aforementioned extra set of lights low down on the pole. Other suggestions included the provision of left turns on red in safe areas (I think that's been addressed with flashing amber filters), flashing amber lights at times when there is little or no traffic on the road, and several more interesting ideas seen in other countries.

Keegan's response went something like this ... - Every year at this time (end of summer) people come home from their holidays and suggest to us all the ideas they see in other countries. Well, we have our own ideas about how to manage traffic and we don't need to copy other countries -

AMAZING! But that about sums it up ... a bad attitude controls traffic in Dublin.

As for fuzzy logic traffic lights in Dublin? I don't think it would work.There are too many sets of traffic lights too close to each other in the city. Chaos is and will be the order for a long time to come.

antoinolachtnai

Well, traffic isn't managed all that badly here, to be fair. There are some stupid things going on, certainly, but they are getting better at keeping the traffic moving.

The city centre actually isn't as bad now as the Western Fringe. At least in the city centre, they've begun to realise that there are just too many cars, and that the only way to sort things out for the long-term is to make the alternatives a bit more attractive.

They haven't figured this out at all in the west of the city. They have some plans to build some more roads to let traffic off the M50 faster, but don't seem to have fully considered the fact that these new roads will bring more cars inwards as well.