Traffic lights

[CAFEDEAD]

Wouldn't it be better if traffic lights had precursor ones, set further back from the junction to stop traffic at. Then shortly before the set nearest the junction turned green the ones further back could let the traffic start moving.

This way the traffic would be up to speed as soon as the junction was clear for it rather than turning green, waiting for people to sort their lives out and then turning red as soon as the queue began to get up to speed.

Plus, anyone running red lights would probably get smashed up pretty quickly as a bonus.

Or, seeing as this is PH, have I inevitably got this wildly wrong?

[sebhaque]

I do think traffic lights need some intelligence built in as it can't do much good to leave lights on a timer that has to cope with both 7am rush hour traffic, as well as 3am dead roads. Similarly and, like you said, sensors could do with being placed further back to notice an upcoming car and change the lights if the other road is somewhat clear. Unfortunately sensors are expensive (in the public sector) so it's a bit of a pipe dream for now.

That said, council attitudes to road safety are alarming. A friend of mine is employed as a traffic light "engineer". He has never driven a car. The last proposal he signed off was to install 20mph speed restrictions on one of our local roads. Thanks to the width of the road and the residents parked cars, you'd be mad to do 20mph on that road anyway. He's signed off for some enormous speed bumps, agreed to a camera study and funded a study for extending the 20mph limit into the adjacent roads. As you'd imagine, I asked him why the fk these speed bumps were necessary, to which he answered, "well they slow cars down so they're necessary." My reply regarding damage to car suspension was met with "well, don't drive so fast then?"

Beggars belief. The council are employing people to manage vehicular transportation who have no actual fking vehicular experience!

[Blakewater]

Doesn't surprise me. There's a speed hump right outside my house and the Round Table Santa nearly fell out of his sleigh going past tonight as he was standing up and dancing as it went over. When the bin lorry hits it my whole house shakes, it can't be doing the foundations any good.

Traffic light timing does change throughout the day. Lights on the main roads stay on green far longer at night than they do during rush hour and then the pattern changes again over the main part of the day outside rush hour. The amber flashing light system some countries have which suspend the traffic lights at night would make sense.

Can we have traffic light ping pong for pedestrians like Germany please?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3Ozz6_pdMI