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Drivers speeding up when the light turns yellow

PostPosted: Fri Feb 08, 2013 4:25 pm
by Bee Gees Fan
Does that irritate anyone else? It certainly gets on my nerves.

I understand that drivers may be in a hurry for numerous reasons, but the appropriate response when traffic lights turn yellow is to slow down. Often, drivers who speed up when the light changes to yellow end up running a red as well, as the light changes again and there's no time for them to stop.

It could potentially be dangerous as well, because sometims peple start to cross a road when the light turns to yellow (although I suppose technically they shouldn't do this) because they assume any drivers will be slowing down.

There've been times when I've been about to cross a road and then realised that an approaching car has no intention of slowing down. A few months ago, one of the cars that did this ended up running through the red light - obviously, I didn't try to cross because I could see he wasn't going to slow/stop, but all the same, once the light is on red, the pedestrian has every right to be walking across the road.

I don't know. It just annoys me a bit.

Re: Drivers speeding up when the light turns yellow

PostPosted: Fri Feb 08, 2013 5:13 pm
by Patrick
Here the yellows are very brief, plus a cop can get you for running a yellow and he'll accuse you of running a red. (it happened to a friend of mine) In the end she had to plead it before a judge who granted her a yellow which means a fine, instead of a much bigger fine plus traffic school and/or a suspension of your driver's license. Therefore it's more prudent to avoid running a yellow at all instead of speeding up and risking being charged with running a red.

Re: Drivers speeding up when the light turns yellow

PostPosted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 4:02 pm
by Eddie2012
Bee Gees Fan wrote:Often, drivers who speed up when the light changes to yellow end up running a red as well, as the light changes again and there's no time for them to stop.

I see this sooo often here in the UK. I would never dream of crossing a street just because the light shows green for me and I always wait until I can see that all cars are going to stop.

The main reason I do this is that I have to cross a busy street every morning/afternoon and the traffic light is located very shortly after a roundabout. The cars are coming off a two lane street/motorway into the roundabout, then when they come out of the roundabout they start speeding up into the next two lane street - only to discover the traffic lights last minute. I can understand it sometimes when they run a red light...

Re: Drivers speeding up when the light turns yellow

PostPosted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 11:15 pm
by Forever Jung
:twisted: The thing that annoys me is when you're halfway accross the street and the lights change, and some knob jockey puts his foot on the floor.

Green does not mean GO, it means go IF SAFE TO DO SO!

Re: Drivers speeding up when the light turns yellow

PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 1:07 pm
by woggle
It bugs the hell out of me esp at the crossing we have under the railway bridge by the station where it can be a bit confusing for the cars comming from the one way system [ bit of a blind corner . They tend to speed up and try beat the lights instead of being bothered to stop.

Re: Drivers speeding up when the light turns yellow

PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 1:56 am
by Moon-Crane
Certainly bugs me. Forget the amber gamblers, i see enough drivers jump red lights at the junctions in our town centre grid system.

Re: Drivers speeding up when the light turns yellow

PostPosted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 5:52 am
by Hawkspur
I had really juddery brakes on my old motorbike in the wet, which meant I really needed to plan ahead if stopping, so when approaching all green traffic lights, I would plan at what point I would have to carry through rather than stop, to be safe. This reduces reaction time, because you don't have to think about whether you have a safe stopping distance after seeing the lights go amber, you just do what you are already thinking. It transferred over when I learned to drive a car and is a habit that I wish some other drivers would share, rather than their, "Floor it" reaction, regardless of how far back they are from the lights... :twisted: