Safe Speed Forums

Hi

Has anyone come across a situation where opposing traffic lights both show amber and red/amber at the same time? We have this situation near our home, anyone know the law regarding the phasing of the amber lights? Most of what I have found refers to closing amber being 3 seconds and opening amber 2 seconds, making a total intergreen phase of 5 seconds. The traffic lights near us have closing amber 1 second and a further 2 seconds closing amber at the same time as the 2 seconds opening amber, making an intergreen phase of just 3 seconds!

Thanks, Cheryl

Sounds like a very good set up, in fact that is the whole point of the red+amber, to let you know that the opposing traffic flow has an amber light.
This is exactly how it should be. From what I have read (and I have read quite a bit about these things) it is perfectly legal.
The green light only means you're allowed to proceed (oh thank you masters), it doesn't mean it is safe to do so.
Most of the lights around here have at least a 2 second all-red phase which is crazy. It is pointless waste. Of course they sell it as a safety feature, but even if that has any truth the side-effects are worse. People get used to trusting the signals to keep them safe when they should be looking out for themselves, and/or get used to ignoring the first, err, 2 seconds of red.

You obviously have read a lot to be using the word 'intergreen'.

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Andrew.

This reminds me of a nasty accident that happened near me some years ago due to faulty trafic lights.

Somehow (and I cannot understand how this could happen! Likly down to using an all electronic system instead of simple relays) a light controlled junction on a DC approaching a 2:1 lane merge point managed to get stuck on all-green.

As one might expect this eventually resulted in a serious pile up.

Now the LA were warned about the faulty lights but did nothing about them (they could at least have switched them off!)

The scumbags defence was, predictably..

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Yeah relays can get 'stuck'. They're not used in the lamp control stages any more. They are still used in some detectors which apparently can cause issues.
The controllers are meant to make sure there can never been two opposing green lights showing. The signals are not safety devices, but they shouldn't themselves cause an additional danger!
I remember reading somewhere that there should be a secondary check circuit which detects if opposing green lights have been shown, and if so do something. Presumably cut power. This might have been in the UK, it might have been America. If the latter then the junction would revert to 'flash mode'.

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Andrew.