Discriminatory timing on traffic lights

[Diver300]

I went to cross the road here:- https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.4386471,-1.4287,3a,75y,25.25h,66.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sIiLQQxpuCSANQU0hh6qSqQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

and I pressed the button just before the lights went green for the cars on the roundabout. So I had missed that cycle of the lights and I couldn't expect the red phase to be extended with just a couple of second's notice.

So about 2 seconds after I pressed the button, the lights went green for the cars.
About 25 seconds after I pressed the button, the lights went red for the cars.
The illuminated green man didn't light.
About 45 seconds after I pressed the button, the lights went green for the cars for a second time.
About a minute after I pressed the button, the lights went red for the cars, and the green man lit.
Then I had to cross the next set of lights:-https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.4386522,-1.4284275,3a,75y,348.11h,68.44t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sJZPrpb_qGFT94Wgc2EfZbA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Is this standard discrimination against the environmentally friendly?

Is it legal?

Should I complain?

[Kim]

Prioritising flow of motor vehicles, while not actually compulsory, seems to be pretty much standard for large junctions like that.  It may be that the push button functions mostly as a placebo (IIRC pedestrians will tend to wait longer if they've pushed a button), and the phase is determined by the overall sequence of the lights around the junction.

In civilised countries they'd probably have an underpass or a bridge or something.

[hubner]

Of course it's discriminatory!

The whole of UK society is based on the private motor vehicle, here's what a random council says:
http://www.bolton.gov.uk/website/Pages/Trafficlightsandpedestriancrossings.aspx

Timing of traffic signals

The timing of traffic signals is generally such that it maximises the number of vehicles that can pass through a junction or along a route. Traffic flows do however, change with time and sometimes the lights can become out of sync with the traffic.
If you think there is an issue with the timing, please contact us using the 'Contacts' tab at the top of this page.


Request a pedestrian crossing

To request a pedestrian crossing you will need to identify a possible site, and then contact us to explain why a crossing is needed at that site. We will assess the need for a new pedestrian crossing, and ensure an effective use of available funding.

If you wish to request pedestrian signals at an existing traffic lights junction, we will investigate the need in a similar way to a new pedestrian crossing request as described above. We will consider each junction individually as the introduction of a pedestrian phase reduces the time available for traffic and at busy junctions can result in long queues of vehicles.

In civilised countries they'd probably have an underpass or a bridge or something.

...for motor vehicles. Underpasess and bridges for pedestrians just to cross a road makes for a hostile environment for people who have to use them.

[Joe.B]

What particularly annoys me are those junctions where the manoeuvre that a car can make in one single phase of green takes the pedestrian 3 separate green men, each requiring its own button push and wait. Grrrr, gets my blood up just thinking about it.   

[ian]

It's one of the many things that makes being outside of a motor vehicle unpleasant and discouraging and sours the urban environment. It also shouts that pedestrians (other than those walking to and from a car park) are to be looked down upon. Make them wait on traffic, or risk dodging across a road. We don't, as a society, think it reasonable to hold up traffic and that pedestrians are merely an hinderance to be corralled away where possible.

[Wowbagger]

When my daughter lived in London she was physically threatened by a driver who had stopped at a zebra crossing for her and whom she didn't acknowledge. This act of non-obeisance on her part caused him to park his car and race after her in order to shout in her face in a most unpleasant way.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's good that we talk about this type of discriminatory and person-unfriendly road design, because if we don't, there is nothing and no one to challenge its normalisation. Complaining about it on a forum like this does a little to keep the issue alive and ensure those who might be receptive to it are conscious of it. Complaining to the highway authority will be a little bit better, because then they'll eventually begin to realise that not everyone is happy with motor-normalisation and that there is another way (other ways) to do things. This doesn't mean they will change. Complaining in public (letters to local news, TV, social media, etc) are even better because then more people will realise not everyone is happy. Many of them (initially almost all) will be hostile but a few will realise that they too dislike it. Eventually the numbers will grow. About twenty years after the majority of people became happy for the timings to change, HA will alter them.

[Kim]

Sometimes they do get it right.  There's a ped crossing near here on the Silly Oak bypass which feeds a major pedestrian/cyclist entrance to the university campus.  Unless recently triggered it reacts quickly (although not instantly) to the button, and the lights will remain red for cars for as long as it takes for all the pedestrians to clear the crossing, which can easily be a couple of minutes at peak times.

The cynic in me wonders if the large volume of motor traffic that continues to use the high street has something to do with this...

[Joe.B]

When my daughter lived in London she was physically threatened by a driver who had stopped at a zebra crossing for her and whom she didn't acknowledge. This act of non-obeisance on her part caused him to park his car and race after her in order to shout in her face in a most unpleasant way.

This is one of those little things in life that really bugs me:

If you cross on a zebra, or sometimes even on a pelican crossing there is often an expectation that one should wave an acknowledgement at the lead stopped car.  I do it myself occasionally, completely bonkers though.  Nobody diving a car through a green light ever feels obliged to thank the vehicles waiting at the corresponding red for obeying the law by stopping. 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yes, sort of. What about sections of narrow road, due to parked cars (most usual cause)? It seems to be customary for moving drivers to give a wave to the stopping driver. Applies (usually) when the stopping driver is a cyclist, too. And in these cases there's sometimes even a return wave.

[Arellcat]

There's a pedestrian crossing in Edinburgh whose control box is seemingly not connected to anything.  People wishing to cross Home Street press the button and wait for the green man.  But the green man only activates when the green man further along the road activates on a button press at that crossing.

[Jaded]

I've learnt the timing and controls on my local push button thing. If you wait a bit and push the button when there isn't a car in a certain location, you cross straight away. If there is one car there you wait for ages - until way after the car has gone, and many more after it.

Zebra Crossings - the way to deal with them is act as if you haven't seen the  cars. I learnt that technique in London many years ago, when Taxi drivers would ignore you if you looked at them. So I didn't look at them (but remained aware of whether they were stopping). I used it (the technique) last night, when two cars could have slowed for pedestrians near a crossing - indeed they should have - but didn't, I carried on walking and had a foot in the road (with my beer-drinking companion grabbing my arm to stop me),  I knew it was too late for the first car, but the second one was intent on following the first when it should have stopped. It did slow and stop. I didn't acknowledge it.

Hell, the Zebra Crossing is the last piece of the Queen's Highway where normal ordinary people hold sway over machines.

In all this I remember some advice that Pancho gave me when you are talking to Highway Engineers. It went along the lines of "OK, looking at the people using that crossing, which ones are economically active in the locality of the crossing?"

As Hubner says, everything is heavily skewed to the private motor vehicle.

Diver300, there are guideline timings for crossings, I've had a look at the ones that apply to the crossing in my first paragraph, and they are set OK. The problem is that the range of permitted settings is very wide.

[Cudzoziemiec]

"OK, looking at the people using that crossing, which ones are economically active in the locality of the crossing?"

[Gattopardo]

When my daughter lived in London she was physically threatened by a driver who had stopped at a zebra crossing for her and whom she didn't acknowledge. This act of non-obeisance on her part caused him to park his car and race after her in order to shout in her face in a most unpleasant way.

Wrong use of the word driver.

[Gattopardo]

When my daughter lived in London she was physically threatened by a driver who had stopped at a zebra crossing for her and whom she didn't acknowledge. This act of non-obeisance on her part caused him to park his car and race after her in order to shout in her face in a most unpleasant way.

This is one of those little things in life that really bugs me:

If you cross on a zebra, or sometimes even on a pelican crossing there is often an expectation that one should wave an acknowledgement at the lead stopped car.  I do it myself occasionally, completely bonkers though.  Nobody diving a car through a green light ever feels obliged to thank the vehicles waiting at the corresponding red for obeying the law by stopping.

Since when? The zebra crossing...but what if is a toucan.

[T42]

What annoys me most is traffic lights that will detect cars but not bikes, especially when they're that evil stamp of light which is permanently red until it detects a vehicle, whereupon it will wait until the aforesaid is almost stopped before changing to green.

The general principle seems to be "cyclist, are you? Get knotted".

[hulver]

What annoys me most is traffic lights that will detect cars but not bikes, especially when they're that evil stamp of light which is permanently red until it detects a vehicle, whereupon it will wait until the aforesaid is almost stopped before changing to green.

The general principle seems to be "cyclist, are you? Get knotted".

Traffic lights like that are supposed to also detect bikes. If they fail to do so they are faulty, so you can legally regard them as a "Give Way".

[mrcharly-YHT]

In all this I remember some advice that Pancho gave me when you are talking to Highway Engineers. It went along the lines of "OK, looking at the people using that crossing, which ones are economically active in the locality of the crossing?"

Bloody hell that's worth engraving on stone. I'll remember that one.

[ian]

I had a similar discussion with the local council and why they were favouring traffic that was essentially driving through. Wouldn't it be better to create an environment where people wanted to stop and, who knows, perhaps spend some money shopping, eating, drinking, that kind of thing.

As ever all conversations of this nature proceed towards the statement 'balance the needs of all road users' by which they mean they're too scared to say boo to a motor vehicle.

I dunno, perhaps all these people like going places where there's lots of cars and traffic. Whoo, fumes and queues of angry drivers. Then again, I suppose that's any shopping centre any given Saturday so I'm probably wrong.

[citoyen]

My route to the station crosses over a main road, using a shared pedestrian/cyclist crossing. It usually waits what feels like at least two minutes before changing after you press the button to cross - and always seems to take even longer when I'm late for my train.

I've considered rigging some kind of remote control device to the crossing so I can activate it when I'm still a minute's riding away. Unfortunately, I don't have the competence.

The road is always busy but the crossing isn't used very often, which means it's utterly pointless making the pedestrians/cyclists wait so long - the cars won't be any more held up if the lights changed immediately.

Of course, many motorists treat the lights as discretionary - on several occasions, I've started to cross after the lights have changed only to have to stop to avoid being run down by a motorist who is too important to stop at a red light for a few seconds. 

[ian]

I do find the delay thing weird and I don't think I've ever seen a coherent explanation. The number of times I press the button and nothing happens, I spy a gap in traffic and cross, and the then (eventually) the lights change to needlessly halt traffic behind me. I can understand adding a delay after the lights have been through a red cycle but what's the point of having a generic delay after the button press? The traffic will be stopped regardless. Just not pointlessly. And of course, pedestrians forced to wait for long periods will take a risk and cross the road regardless.

What makes me a bit sad is pedestrians who do the little apologetic run, 'sorry Mr Important Driver for holding you up for a few seconds.' Even I have to remind myself to saunter every now and then. Journeys on foot are not less important than those in cars.

[Basil]

The road is always busy but the crossing isn't used very often, which means it's utterly pointless making the pedestrians/cyclists wait so long - the cars won't be any more held up if the lights changed immediately.

This is something I've often wondered about. 
The main road near to where we were in Brum had Selly Oak Hospital with its busy A&E in one direction and Coteridge fire station in the other.  Blues and Twos very common on that stretch of road.  When the kids were small i taught them not to press the button if they could hear sirens.  But of course, the lights took so long to change, you were more or less gauranteed a emergency response vehicle at exactly the wrong time.

I can understand a wait time after use before the lights can be activated again.  Say 30 seconds, but instant activation beyond that limit would make no difference to drivers.

[Jaded]

I do find the delay thing weird and I don't think I've ever seen a coherent explanation. The number of times I press the button and nothing happens, I spy a gap in traffic and cross, and the then (eventually) the lights change to needlessly halt traffic behind me. I can understand adding a delay after the lights have been through a red cycle but what's the point of having a generic delay after the botton press? The traffic will be stopped regardless. Just not pointlessly. And of course, pedestrians forced to wait for long periods will take a risk and cross the road regardless.

What makes a bit sad is pedestrians who do the little apologetic run, 'sorry Mr Important Driver for holding you up for a few seconds.' Even I have to remind myself to saunter every now and then. Journeys on foot are not less important than those in cars.

In this country we normally queue and operate 'first come first served'.

Except on pedestrian crossings, where the pedestrian stands waiting as car drivers, who weren't even visible then the button was pressed, queue jump.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The explanation I've heard for the delay is that if the lights responded instantly to the button, people would get used to it and just cross immediately (well, say 3 seconds after) pressing the button, without checking. I reckon this is bullshit.

[Basil]

The explanation I've heard for the delay is that if the lights responded instantly to the button, people would get used to it and just cross immediately (well, say 3 seconds after) pressing the button, without checking. I reckon this is bullshit.

Well yes, there is that I suppose.  I remember an elderly couple "teaching" their g children (I assume) how to use the same lights as I mentioned earlier.  It was all based on the green man.  When the little green man lights up, you can cross.  No mention at all of looking at the traffic.