I was at a traffic light with my support worker a few weeks ago, and this dumb fuck wasn’t on the sensor. He was sitting there for like ten minutes and wouldn’t move forward. My sw got out of that lane and went a different way. When we came back a couple mins later he was still there!
I was this person once. I think it was around 2015 I got stuck at a left turn light that puts you on the exit ramp to the interstate. I had only had my license for a year (if even that) and couldn’t tell where the sensor was. I’d keep getting blinking yellow lights, but traffic was a lot coming the other way so I could never go. I kept feeling as I scooted up I was getting too close to the cars crossing the intersection. I swear I was there for like 10 minutes or something.
If there is a main road with higher volume, various side roads and no other bottleneck down the road that needs to be accounted for, it doesn’t make much sense to regularly interrupt main road traffic if nobody else needs the intersection. Conversely, depending on the interval, the side road drivers may have to wait a long while if they just barely missed a green.
Both of these cause traffic risk as well: Firstly that the main road driver who decides the red light is stupid and cuts off a side road driver they didn’t see, secondly that a side road driver who barely missed green doesn’t want to wait and tried to squeeze in before main road traffic picks back up.
Having the traffic lights switch on demand reduced those risks: Main road drivers who know that it’s red only if there’s gonna be some other car may be less reckless in running it, while side road drivers don’t have to wait as long and don’t feel the need to squeeze in.
Of course, it can’t ever remove the risks entirely because humans are what they are. It also depends on people actually driving up to the point where the sensor detects them. If they don’t know about the concept, they’ll have a hard time understanding what’s wrong. I was taught those things in driving school, but if it’s not a thing in your area or wasn’t when you learned, chances are nobody told you about it later.
I was at a traffic light with my support worker a few weeks ago, and this dumb fuck wasn’t on the sensor. He was sitting there for like ten minutes and wouldn’t move forward. My sw got out of that lane and went a different way. When we came back a couple mins later he was still there!
I was this person once. I think it was around 2015 I got stuck at a left turn light that puts you on the exit ramp to the interstate. I had only had my license for a year (if even that) and couldn’t tell where the sensor was. I’d keep getting blinking yellow lights, but traffic was a lot coming the other way so I could never go. I kept feeling as I scooted up I was getting too close to the cars crossing the intersection. I swear I was there for like 10 minutes or something.
Is that how traffic lights work in your area? Like they don’t cycle at all when you’re not on the sensor?
In theory, it’s an efficiency measure.
If there is a main road with higher volume, various side roads and no other bottleneck down the road that needs to be accounted for, it doesn’t make much sense to regularly interrupt main road traffic if nobody else needs the intersection. Conversely, depending on the interval, the side road drivers may have to wait a long while if they just barely missed a green.
Both of these cause traffic risk as well: Firstly that the main road driver who decides the red light is stupid and cuts off a side road driver they didn’t see, secondly that a side road driver who barely missed green doesn’t want to wait and tried to squeeze in before main road traffic picks back up.
Having the traffic lights switch on demand reduced those risks: Main road drivers who know that it’s red only if there’s gonna be some other car may be less reckless in running it, while side road drivers don’t have to wait as long and don’t feel the need to squeeze in.
Of course, it can’t ever remove the risks entirely because humans are what they are. It also depends on people actually driving up to the point where the sensor detects them. If they don’t know about the concept, they’ll have a hard time understanding what’s wrong. I was taught those things in driving school, but if it’s not a thing in your area or wasn’t when you learned, chances are nobody told you about it later.
depends a lot, but yes some lights are like that.
In my area the sensor turns on at (???) some time at night. Otherwise it always cycles. At night though, if you aren’t on the sensor it will skip.