Traffic lights in Athlone town centre

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The lights at the crossroads beside Dunnes were out yesterday, I have never seen the junction so clear on what was one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Please don't fix them!!

I was thinking the same thing the last time they went out. Only problem is if some gombeen decides he wants to make an illegal right turn.

I say the opposite, fix 'em. There's been several fender benders and gob****es who simply shouldn't be on the road. I had several near misses myself, 2 in the car and 1 crossing the road.

You'll get morons anyway, lights or no lights.

I'm with DolanBaker. Town has never been so accessible.

Long term, i say replace lights with pedestrian crossings and yield signs. Also use that surface that makes a car slow down (like they have in Monksland Retail Park) to minimise muppetry.

Yes i know the stupid lights will be back. :mad: BUt its good to dream of council doing things to benefit all.

Pretty sure its done on purpose for that exact reason. They coincidentally developed a fault this time last year too and traffic flowed well

Deleted User wrote: »

I hope you're right, but I bet it's just a coincidence.

If the council know that they're useless why do they keep using them! :rolleyes:

Someone fromt he Council must have read this ... Lights are back working apparently.

athlonelad wrote: »

I was thinking the same thing the last time they went out. Only problem is if some gombeen decides he wants to make an illegal right turn.

The amount of people making right turns there was unreal. I was stuck behind a gimp coming out of town one day who pulled up at Dunnes to turn right. He was parked beside the little traffic island and couldn't go because of the traffic coming in from Supermacs direction. "If only my car was a tank" I thought. I could of rid the world of one less idiot.

He was the worst, but I must of seen people turning right from all approaches in the last couple of weeks.

Deleted User wrote: »

I think that this is one of the few junctions in Ireland that would work with the US style four way stop sign system.

That wouldn't work here because there are too many muppets who wouldn't understand that it was a four way stop - First to arrive, first to go would be way beyond their level of comprehension..... We have no four way stop systems in Ireland - You can't just introduce the first one and expect it to work.

veryangryman wrote: »

People would get used to it. Motorways in Ireland had the same problem when first introduced. Long term, people get used to them and use them fine (for the most part). Same story for Metric system.

Of course if it were introduced, id wait before going back into town again for this to have "gelled".

Irish drivers dont obey stop signs most of the time.

Deleted User wrote: »

It actually worked because there were NO signs. Without a cue (to ignore) each and every driver had to assume that the others on the junction were idiots and drove slowly to avoid crashing.

So in fact that's the way it had been working, without lights.

That is generally the case when lights are temporarily switched off - everyone is cautious and courteous. That caution and courtesy diminishes over time and one route starts to dominate the other meaning one route will continue to flow freely but the other will be a snarled a lot of the time.

I like the idea of a US-style four way stop. That could actually work well at this junction if implemented correctly. I don't think casually leaving the lights switched off is viable long term - an alternative solution needs to be properly implemented.

Just to note also that many traffic lights around Athlone don't seem to have any intelligence built-in. They are on a rigid sequence and don't adjust to better suit traffic at any given time. There is definite room for improvement in this regard - install plenty of induction loops to sense the traffic, allowing lights to dynamically adjust their sequence and timings to maximise traffic flow.