Look to see if they have a little antenna sticking up past their ear. If so then they are too engrossed in talking on the phone to pay attention to the intersection. Next time your sitting at a busy intersection waiting for the green watch the cars and count the ones on the phone as they drive by. A cocked head is a dead giveaway. I have found the average in the Houston area is one out of three or four.

 

>I see a lot of this as I am a Signal Electrician for
>Missouri DOT and spend my workdays in signalized
>interesections. We haven't always had Right Turn on Red, it
>came about in the 70's during the energy shortage as a way
>to save fuel and I suspect that a lot of the more elderly
>drivers have driven so long before Right Turn on Red was
>implemented that they just never broke the habit of sitting
>at a red until it changes.
>Just my $.02 worth from watchin' them all day.
>
>'02 F-350 XLT 4X2 CC SRW V-10 6sp 4.30 Az. Beige


AAAhhhh HHaaa! I knew there had to be a reason like that! Yep, I would wager that most of these drivers were driving back when that no turn on red rule was in effect. Man, that's annoying. Oh well. Thanks for the answer.

 

Hey Ron, nice to see another Sigtec here! I get to "observe" a lot of drivers in intersections myself, I've also noticed that when two come upon a red and want to turn right, the second within a foot of the first's rear bumper the whole way down the block, the first will almost always wait and chuckle to themselves 'cause they know the dude behind is in such a hurry.....call it gettin' even?

Around these parts, green means go (most of the time anyway), yellow means go fast and red means just floor it! You know, people have actually contacted me pissed about a red light voilation ticket they got, admit to running it, then say "Since there is a couple of seconds that both sides are red, it should be OK for me to run the red light." Sorry folks, this just don't cut it and never will. I just laugh at 'em and come back with, "Was it really worth the pinch of the pocketbook and few points for your ins. co. to have fun with for the couple of seconds you almost could have saved? and yes, the intersection was and is working properly!" Of course this isn't as bad as the folks who call after they just caused an accident, to report that the lights are not working correctly, I always ask, "What exactly is wrong, light out, timing incorrect or out of sync, ect. and could I have your name and number please?" If their next statement is "Why do you need my name", up go the red flags and on the box to County Radio asking if there was a recent accident at the intersection and if so, who handled it. The officer will respond and give me last names of parties involed, then I ask on the phone, "Is this Mr/Ms. X or Mr/Ms. Y?" next thing I hear is "click"!

Sorry for the ranting-you can all tell what kinda day I just had playin' target for the inpatient idiots!

Anyway, bottom line is-That's their right to "No Turn On Red", no matter what the reason. I also don't feel that one or two people not making that turn on red really contribute to the overall lack of vehicular movement, when you have "funnels" like we do everywhere, it's one bean in-one bean out, two beans in-one bean out, then the next bean out, what PADOT seems to do is dump a handful of beans into the funnel and wonder why there are back-ups and gridlock!

Aaaahhhhh, correctly timed lights are beautiful to behold.....unless everyone thinks the speed limit is 10 mph faster than it is and have to stop at every light.....jeez, you think after driving the same route everyday some would figure it out.....if I only do 25 mph thru the 25 mph zone and only do 35 mph thru the 35 mph zone I don't ever have to stop for a light.....amazing, they all go green.....just for me.

 

snip

>Aaaahhhhh, correctly timed lights are beautiful to
>behold.....unless everyone thinks the speed limit is 10 mph
>faster than it is and have to stop at every light.....jeez,
>you think after driving the same route everyday some would
>figure it out.....if I only do 25 mph thru the 25 mph zone
>and only do 35 mph thru the 35 mph zone I don't ever have to
>stop for a light.....amazing, they all go green.....just for
>me.

What burns me is that when I drive through the town I work in, I always get stuck at the looongest lights because I am not lead footed, whereas my buddy drives about 10-15 MPH over the speed limit, bangs through the gears, unsafe lane changes, and gets there 5 minutes faster on a 10 minute trip. Tell me that this isn't incentive to drive like a maniac?? (the downside is the ticket you get....)

Tony

'74 F250. 460, "beater"
'73 F250, "midnight auto"
'77 F250, 460 transplantee, "Flamer"

 

That usually means you got on the road in the wrong syncro.

If you adjust your speed earlier,you end up getting them all green like the signal guy says.

It drives my wife crazy how I can practically snap my fingers to get a light to change.It's because I driven these roads for 36 years.
Just like Whoopie Goldberg and the little girl in the Movie Corinna,Corinna

Dennis https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gallery/sizeimage.php?&photoid=1733&.jpg



Please Don't Ask Me Any Tough Questions As:
"I'm Saving My Memory For When I Develop Alzheimer's"


78 F-150 429CJ,Silver
w/Explorer Pkge.
641/2-Mustang 260,Pre-World's Fair Car.
64-Fairlane500 S/C waiting for a 390-4spd.
68-Mustang 289-Sunlit Gold 80,892Mi
78-Buick LeSabre 403 4V
84 Volvo DL Wagon

 

One reason is that after about 40 you begin to lose your side vision. Nothing serious, but enough that you may run over a pedestrian if not careful. That's why DMV requires you to have side mirror restrictions as you age. Also, in a car you cannot see as well as in a tall truck. So just take a deep breath and remember you'll be there too, someday. {I just hit 50} so don't honk at me, ok?

 

Hey Tony, one reason they might be this way is it's a two way street, and when I say two way, it can be divided with little or no storage room in between the opposing lanes, I don't care what any "expert" says, there is very little anyone can do to synco or coordinate both directions. In this case, they will usually favor which ever side has the heaviest volume. It's just a fact of life. Most will tell you they keep the group or "platoon" within the "green band" but have not and cannot explain to me how, if the first intersection let 50 sec. of vehicals thru, the next couple can do this with only 15-20 sec. at the end of the green part of the light (every intersection gets basically 50 sec. of green), in other words, they (the vehicals) will all have to pick-up the speed to at least double what's posted and quite a bit above the 85th percentile even. This seems to be acceptable to most. I don't find this exceptable at all. Another reason could be that they just don't have them timed correctly, most use the timings a 'puter spits at 'em, the end.....I guess traffic flow or volumes never change, even between the time the counts are made and the timings actually go on the street-this could be as long as 2 years. Here, PADOT never ever does a follow up survey of the intersection (hey, it now belongs to the twp/city, a "gift" from PADOT) and will generally only grant a timing change if the twp/city ect., knows exactly how much time they want on which movements, not always that easy to do and really hard for the smaller towns, cost money to have an engineer come in and consult. They (PADOT) are gettin' a little better about this and helping smaller towns with real support, allowing the times to be changed without being cast in stone and in this way adapted to the demands of traffic that travels through it be it a cooridoor or single intersection. Again, for a small town this cost money to have a contractor come in and make these changes so more often than not, it doesn't get done unless many, many people are complaining.
While I am not to fond of PADOT, it is not all their fault, planning has a lot to do with it-good planning, and you have no or few problems, let development go wild with no planning and you have many, many problems with traffic only being the tip of the iceburg but one that we have to deal with just about everytime we leave the homestead! And by all means, go ahead and give the city/twp a call and make the complaint, in a nice, concerned citizen/motorist type way of course, might just help! I'll be the first to admit, it really sucks when you can't make the lights!!!

 

That is very true. In Glendale, Arizona, the lights are time like this. In Phoenix (right next to Glendale) it seems that when I go up to a light it turns red very quickly (yellow, then red withing a second or two) I actually got pulled over by a Phoenix Officer (police of which I have great respect, the good ones anyway.) and he said, you did run that light, but since it does go a little quick for this obviously heavy truck, I will let it go with a warning, that's why there is that few second lag where all lights at the intersection are red. It's nice when the cops understand about trucks, it was kind of annoying that he pulled me over.

 

For what it's worth, I thought the required min. yellow time nationally is 3 sec. (most contollers and conflict monitors have this min. time "built" in, if it's less than this they go to flash/failure mode), although this may just be a recommendation from the Manual On Uniform Traffic Control Devices or MUTCD and not "required". It can be longer depending on speed and grade, but no shorter legally, around these parts anyway.

 

Hi Chuck
I know all the later equipment we have will not allow any time less than 3 seconds to be programmed in the yellow, but the older stuff sure would. I couldn't remember if the 3 seconds was a standard or guidance, so got out the MUTCD 2000 CD and looked.

Standard:
The duration of a yellow change interval shall be predetermined.

Guidance:
A yellow change interval should have a duration of approximately 3 to 6 seconds.
The longer intervals should be reserved for use on approaches with higher speeds.
Since it says should have and not shall have my guess would be that the equipment manufacturers for their own protection have set the 3 second minimum to prevent someone from accidently programming in a short yellow. Keep the manufacturer out of court explaining why their equipment allowed us to do such.

Option:
The yellow change interval may be followed by a red clearance interval to provide additional time before conflicting traffic movements are released.

Around here we pretty well use 4 seconds as a minimum time for yellow and make up the balance of the computed total change period with all red.



'02 F-350 XLT 4X2 CC SRW V-10 6sp 4.30 Az. Beige

 

 

Hi Ron and thanks, that's kinda what I recalled the book sayin', although on most things they are a little like that with words of "shall" or "should" and not "must"!
Yeah, I know what your sayin' with the older, heck 2 months ago I got rid of my last 2 EF-20's, talk about programmer friendly, man, these can do anything you could ever imagine! Mechanical with no CM. However, that's why they are now gone. Give 'em credit, they were some of the last, built in '74 and were on the street since then with only regular care and feeding. Kinda miss 'em, they didn't care about lightning and I sorta looked forward to their 3 month check-up's, not many others you can pull the dial/timer motor unit and keep the intersection cycling by hand if needed!
Don't know about your monitors, but ours now have idiot-proof resets, momentary reset buttons (same manufacture concern's), I have found a few that someone had jammed toothpicks then taped over the reset 'cause the CM wouldn't hold, guess it was easier than replacing it? Sad but true! Thanks again Ron, have a good one! Chuck

PS-Must be nice to work for an outfit that has up to date regs., on CD no less, we share a '99 softbound copy between sigs and signs, same with the PA regs. and specs!
106 intersections, 16 warning/school flashing units, 38 street lites, 1 '00 E-350 SD with hyd. stinger boom and me with contractor as back-up only, and geez, they were upset I wouldn't take calls 365/yr!