Safe Speed Forums

Observing temporary traffic lights!

My mate who puts poles in the ground has a gripe. People keep ignoring his traffic lights and stop go boards.
especially when they turn both ends red lift the pole off the lorry swing it round in the road and plant it. He has had too many near misses. Drivers dont believe they have much chance of being nnicked for ignoring tempoary lights.
however a 12m wooden pole through the windscreen might stop them!

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

On the other hand people have a problem with temporary traffic lights. Often poorly positioned, badly timed, not maintained or simply not needed. Many times you sit at a set of temporary lights, with no work going on, when you can clearly see the other end of the restriction is totally clear.

These problems condition people to ignore the lights.

Which, I suspect, is mainly down to bad setting up by untrained people. Done properly they can work well. There is a set on a minor road near us which changes to green immediately it senses a vehicle, provided that there is no oncoming traffic. Causes hardly any delay.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

That is the beauty of the set up with two guys each with boards...common sense is used not technology....must add to the labour costs though....

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

I am not exactly sure what you are saying here?
I suspect that it is there precise 'behaviour' that is not clear to drivers. As he seems to have a specific problem I would look the their method initially and see from an 'outside' viewpoint if they are clear and dominant in action.
That is not to say that I don't agree with the above comment too, that many drivers question the validity of requirement (cry wolf), however drivers need to obey signs and workman controls. Authorities also need to ensure that workmen are protected and that signs are needed and applied appropriately.

If they find this happens a lot is it on specific (main?) roads, or rat runs ?
If it is only their 'crew' when they work those roads or other crews too, and all over the local area for everyone or again just their crew where-ever they work - just trying to seek the common denominator.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

When they are green - drive through them with care

Otherwise - STOP

If you have trouble with this have a look at yourself and think "should I really be driving this vehicle?"

These chaps know what they are doing and are allways on site. however therse lights are set up at speed without planning. They cannot choose to extend the site 300m to give excelent visabillity. I believe many of the people who ignore lights do so willfully.

There are so many rules being broadcast fron no10 that people have to break rules all the time just to get by. people dont necessarily have the best judgement as to those that cant be bent.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

And when they fail - a not infrequent occurrence - ring for a pizza. But not from inside the car.



And ask yourself, after five minutes at a red light on a clear road "should the person who set this system up have been trained properly before being allowed to do so"

Incidentally - what is the legal status of temporary traffic lights?

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Couple of years ago just down the road from me there were Massive hold ups caused by a set of temporarys both stuck on red.

To make matters worse, the lights were only 20 Ft appart and had nothing between them No vehicles, no holes, no materials!!!

(My Guess is that there had been a works vehicle parked there and the crew had buggggerd off to lunch without bothering to remove the lights)

The jams were a mile or two in both directions

If I had been a Lawyer I would have walked up and down the line of frustrated drivers taking names and addresses with a view to taking a "Class action" against the company responsible for damages for the delay!

I think I would have won it too! (I would have claimed damages at the companys CEO's average hourly rate on the grounds that his time is no diferent from anybody elses! )

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

I must admit in the siuation described above, most people round here when certain that both ends are stopped for minute, start to ignore the red and proceed through slowly and tell the lead person on the other side that the lights are stuck on red both ends, it's common sense really, I couldn't imagine long queues sitting there for ages round here.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Thats really what people were doing. Its just that this is a busy road. The queues built up really quite quickly, but they still took a long time to clear. Even when it is "Obvious" that there is a problem, most people are uneasy about going through reds.

Of course, no doubt, in future temporarys will be "enforced" with their own cameras! and the result will be utter chaos!

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

i surprised one of these on my bike the other day... by stopping at it... after about 30seconds the guy i stopped at did a double take and radio'd through so i could go.

cant think why he thought i was just going to ignore him.

are these lollipops actually enforceable ? do the guys operating them actually have any authority under traffic law ?

Same as 'regular' ones as far as I can tell.


Not entirely certain, but I believe the signs are as they are in the TSRGD 2002. Assuming they have been designed correctly.

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Andrew.

So I could hire a set of lights, adjust them to a crazy timing, put them on the road outside my house and they would have the status of regular traffic lights. Surely not? I would expect that, to have legal status, they must be set up by an "autjorised person". In Gear???

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

You could do the same with fixed lights, it'd just require digging up the road.
Also, I was only thinking from the point of view of an end-user, not installation legalness. I don't know about that.

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Andrew.

county councils have to put the exact positioning, layout and junction, timing and reason for them into law in Ireland so I'm guessing temporary traffic lights have no legal basis. I imagine a dangerous driving charge is in order though for failing to stop at for a hazard

[quote="Mind Driver"county councils have to put the exact positioning, layout and junction, timing and reason for them into law in Ireland so I'm guessing temporary traffic lights have no legal basis. I imagine a dangerous driving charge is in order though for failing to stop at for a hazard[/quote]

Yes. My driving instructor taught me that temporary traffic lights were advisory but if an accident occured because of ignoring the red light you could be guilty of dangerous driving. But some cursory research suggests that this changed in 1994.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/4746227/Street-legal-Be-alert---red-is-not-the-only-danger-sign.html
I was also under the impression that you could legally pass a stuck-on-red light but that isn't so either.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

We've had the conversation on this board before - on and off since 2004.. IG came down hard line on this as I recall and stated that the tempos have the same status as normal ones in that red/amber/amber only mean and green means "may proceeed if safe to do so".


As I recall - if it's obvious that the lights are stuck - then get out of the car .. find the little phone number on the lights and phone to report. At this point - whoever on the end of the phone logs the error and gives you the authority to treat as a junction with a STOP sign but at which you may proceed if path is clear.

You will have to trawl down archives. My wild wife with the sharp feline memory seems to think there was a similar conversation on PH ca 2007 with the vonhosen character saying the same as IG did back on here in 2004!

[Post tags tidied up. Steve]

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I put it with it for a few of minutes, but then I assume they are broken. They are too keen on putting lights around piddly little holes in the road. Whatsamatterwithem?

There was a set of tempry traffic lights I saw last week which appeared to be protecting nothing else but the generator set which ran the traffic lights

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown