What to do at stuck traffic light on red

[barnaclebill15]

on a flyover waiting to turn right onto the slip road that leads down to the main A road. I'ts a two lane road that splits to three before the junction the two right lanes are for the right turn only and the single left is for straight on. The lights go to stop just as I arrive then I notice that the left lane light is going through it's normal cycle but the right lane is not changing. After 4 cycles I am sure my side traffic light is stuck on red, I can see the other roads are free of traffic so I make the turn against the red and proceed.
What would you have done?

 

[Naraic]

What you did.

 

[mikestrivens]

as above.

 

[John Laidlaw]

Ditto

 

[LostKiwi]

And me.

 

[Headhurts]

Floor it.

Robin


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Rappey69]

Im sure we would all drive throught it eventually, but thats still a possible 3 points for jumping a red light i believe !
, but what else could be done?

 

[turbopete]

i could be wrong, but I believe there is no endorsement if the lights are genuinely broken.

and as an aside, ive even seen off duty police drive through a red light in their own private vehicle if the lights are broken.

 

[Ken_R]

I always look for the sensor 'Diamond' in the road surface and ensure that I come to a halt above it, or the 'Diamond' second back. Something alluded to elsewhere, possibly on here, whereby 'tricking' the sensors that there is a longer queue might result in a more favourable sequence of change. These sensors are easy to spot once one practices looking for them.

Something you soon learn when driving HGV's is that, whilst you can often move forward, you can't always move backwards.

We've got a light controlled 'T' junction near here. It is also a Box junction with a 'Right Turn light'. However, the light for the opposing traffic only turns to red, so enabling the Right Turn arrow light to illuminate, will only activate if a vehicle is detected above one of the sensors.

Seems simple. Lights turn to green. The road into which one intends to turn is clear. Move into the Box junction where appropriately placed is an additional 'Diamond' sensor which 'triggers/confirms' the 'Right Turn arrow' sequence.

The number of times I see motorists just sit at the Stop line, or slightly beyond it, but 'afraid' to move into the correct right turn position, thereby activating the additional sensor, because of the yellow cross hatchings. They then ponder as to why they are not getting the green 'Right Turn' arrow.

It's often not the fault of the equipment. It is an inability of the motorist to understand the Highway Code.

In the case of the OP, I would suspect that they may have 'overshot' the final sensor 'Diamond' before the software has gone into 'trigger' mode, or they were halted between sensor 'Diamonds' and therefore their presence wasn't being detected.

Likewise, I would have gone, if safe, but then emailled whichever authority is responsible for the junction to 'report a sensor fault'. CYA

 

[barnaclebill15]

Thanks for the replies, as it is two lanes it is not an added signal with an arrow but a complete traffic light as the majority of the traffic in that direction are turning right from the two lanes. The straight ahead is a separate light on the single left hand lane, when this happened both right hand lanes were full of cars, i was in front on the extreme right lane with a large 4X4 on my left in the other right turn lane.
Just did this same route this afternoon, the lights were on green as I approached with no traffic just changed to amber as I passed.
One mile down the main A road I left on the off ramp, two lanes again split into three, the left for left only the right two for straight on or right but this is a light controlled roundabout, kept in the middle lane marked ahead or right, lights were RED, both right hand lanes were full and I was about six cars back, realised the lights were not changing, after a few cycles the cars in my lane started moving against the RED when it was clear when it was my turn it was clear so I was able to continue. The car at the front of the extreme right lane did not want to go against the RED light and was just holding there as I passed.
Don't believe it twice in three days in two spots only a mile apart