CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Commuting

I ran a red light...

(31 posts)
  • Started 12 years ago by fimm
  • Latest reply from Instography

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12

  1. fimm
    Member

    I don't know what I was thinking about (not taking care of myself in a dangerous and hostile environment, anyway...) I was stopped at lights I stop at most days. There's a straight on light and a right turn light. The straight on light was red, so I stopped. The right turn light was green, so the right turning vehicles were going. This is usual.

    The right turn red light went red, and for some reason I took this as an invitation to go. I was fortunate that I was not flattened by cars coming through on the light that had gone green, which could well have happened. I got halfway across the junction and realised what I'd done... so I stopped somewhere safe(ish) until my light was green.

    I'm really very sorry. What should my penance be?

    How does this sort of thing happen? I mean, is it just the fact that road use becomes so routine that we "turn our brains off" until something goes wrong?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  2. steveo
    Member

    Ironically, given the crack down. I ran a light this morning too, first time honest. I think the green man came on in the corner of my eye, I thought my light had gone green and moved to the right turn filter at the bottom of Westfield Road and Stevenson Road. By the time I realised my light had not gone I was already through all the other lights were red for the ped phase so I just went...

    Sorry every one I'm justifying the EEN...

    Posted 12 years ago #

  3. chdot
    Admin

    There's definitely an element of auto-pilot.

    Eye sees green and brain goes go.

    Started a few times when ped lights have gone green, but realised almost straight away.

    Presume it can be worse (for drivers too) if you do same trip everyday and a sequence alters unexpectedly for some reason.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  4. Roibeard
    Member

    I've had false starts in similar situations - I think being in the ASL tends to mean the nearest lights are in your peripheral vision. If there's a pedestrian phase, that green can mean go, if you don't watch the lights on the other side of the junction.

    Possibly similar can occur with "movement" in the periphery, not just a change in colour, as peripheral vision isn't particularly colour sensitive?

    Robert

    Posted 12 years ago #

  5. Dave
    Member

    I've twice driven through box junctions in Edinburgh when the green man came on, once in the car and once on the Rapto. It's pretty horrifying when you realise.

    Like the super hi-viz / double front-light cyclist that I almost destroyed in Marchmont, stuff like this is part of what keeps me humble about things that go wrong on the roads without malice (not that I would or could use that genuineness as a justification if I'd run down someone!).

    Posted 12 years ago #

  6. mgj
    Member

    And a valid reason not to go through reds while on your bike; folk follow you without thinking.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  7. wingpig
    Member

    My leg sometimes twitches when a filter not applying to me goes green. I've never set off on the wrong light but did once go past the stop line heading south out of Charlotte Square years ago when something weird had happened to the position of lights for heading to PS or turning right. Sometimes heading north along Easter Road I have to remind myself to remember to watch the lights for the pedestrian crossing just before the bridge over the tracks before the right-turn into Albion Road, which is what I'm usually concentrating on at that point regarding positioning and vehicles approaching from behind or whether to not bother if there's a big queue waiting to turn and lots of oncoming traffic.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  8. fimm
    Member

    I think it was the *change* of light that somehow got processed as permission to go. The more I think about it, the more I realise how fortunate I am that the lead car wasn't going down the road I crossed. If you were going to choose to run that red (and I've seen people do it) you would look to see if it was safe. But I didn't look, because in my head my light was green, not the other light.

    Very scary.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  9. Roibeard
    Member

    There's a right filter heading along Willowbrae Road for turning right into Duddingston Road West.

    Unlike most filters, straight ahead and left are not simply green, they're also arrows, so right turning traffic can be misled into thinking they can proceed right if it is safe (like most other filters), whereas they're actually held on red.

    Streetview

    Robert

    Posted 12 years ago #

  10. wingpig
    Member

    Dissimilarly there's the filtration system for heading south-east down Willowbrae/Milton from Duddingston Road West, where you sometimes get a protected right-turn-only segment of the sequence but are not prevented from heading right if it's clear, which it sometimes isn't without the filter, which perhaps needs a quick Clarencing to make it detect small vehicles.

    Likewisely dissimilar are the right-turn into Broughton Road from Rodney Street which sometimes doesn't seem to do the right-turn-only portion of the sequence and turning right to head along along Great Junction Street from Ferry Road.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  11. Nelly
    Member

    I jumped one this morning - as I do most mornings.

    There is a Right Green Filter on Morningside Road into Church Hill Place - my morning commute takes the opposite way - i.e. from Church Hill place left onto Morningside Road.

    I can:

    (a) Sit there looking at the red light

    (b) Take the left (as long as there are no peds crossing - rare at 6.30am) entirely safely.

    I make no apologies for this, although it is slightly naughty. I could be captured and fined - I accept that risk.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  12. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Presumably at that time in the morning there are plenty other red lights that could be safely and easily jumped that you wait for. What is it about this one that singles it out? Genuine question rather than an accusation.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  13. ARobComp
    Member

    I ran the pedestrian/cyclist crossing while it was on red a few months ago. The reason? I was distracted by a very attractive young female police officer who was walking past on the other side, clear missed the fact it had changed. Oh lord the Irony. Luckily she didn't see and there wasn't anyone waiting to cross, someone having pushed and crossed before the green man.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  14. Nelly
    Member

    @anth, you are right - plenty I dont run through.

    I should be clear that I dont go through at all points in the sequence - I only left turn where the filter the other way is on, hence there is nothing coming from my right - to be honest its poor infrastructure, as there should be a corresponding left filter when the right goes on.

    I guess that doesnt happen, as (most times during the day) the pedestrian crossing is used a lot.

    I think this one is similar to the argument about us taking on rules similar to the USA Right turn on Red?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  15. Roibeard
    Member

    @ArobComp - LOL

    Presumably she has in hi-viz, otherwise you'd have missed her...

    ;-)

    Robert

    Posted 12 years ago #

  16. Smudge
    Member

    @Nelly "I make no apologies for this, although it is slightly naughty against the law. I could be captured and fined - I accept that risk. "

    Fixed it for you ;-) but you're a grown up, your choice.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  17. Uberuce
    Member

    *walks into the confessional and crosses self*

    "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I amber gambled yesterday."

    "The Lord will forgive your trespass, my son. Say ten Hail Sheldons"

    "It is worse, Father. I did so because I had committed the sin of pride. I was on my fixed gear and did not want to use the handbrakes like those traitors with freewheels. By the time it was obvious I would not be able to slow down with the pedals, the amber phase was almost over and it was too late to shift hands to the brakes."

    "The Lord will forgive your...wait. What? Alter boy! Send for wood and oil and my copy of Malleus Hipstercarum"

    *whimper*

    Posted 12 years ago #

  18. gembo
    Member

    On gorgie road to take a right up fords road I go beyond the turn and activate the pedestrian crossing. I then dismount and push over. Occasionally I miss a break in traffic by doing this but 9/10 it gets me over more quickly, I believe I picked up this tip to turning right into oncoming traffic from Lord Franklin, if my memory serves me well. I confess if I have spotted that a pedestrian has activated the crossing I Pootle over with one foot pushing no actual dismount. The activation of the crossing also lets vehicles out onto gorgie rd that have been waiting, but the drivers of the cars that have to stop do not look pleased. Once in a while I also just indicate with my right arm and shoot up fords rd, conditions need to be favourable for this and the new second hand car sales yard will reduce this likelihood.

    Alter boy in uberuce above, could be altered to altar boy but ubie wan may be referring to a process of altering boys that I do not want to think about

    Posted 12 years ago #

  19. Uberuce
    Member

    *hands in his spelling pedant badge*

    Posted 12 years ago #

  20. chdot
    Admin

    "hands in his spelling pedant badge"

    Your badge big enough to get your hands in?

    (The perversity of pedantic misunderstanding...)

    Posted 12 years ago #

  21. Uberuce
    Member

    Gah! Victory is yours.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  22. Claggy Cog
    Member

    Best laugh I have had in ages. Thanks...

    Posted 12 years ago #

  23. Tom
    Member

    Last big mistake at lights I made: waiting behind a taxi to turn right onto Waverley Bridge from Princes Street; taxi moves off, I assume it's a filter. It's not. The taxi gets across three lanes of oncoming traffic moving off from the lights but I'm left trailing behind it in a flurry of apologetic handwaves.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  24. Darkerside
    Member

    Most concerning lights moment I've had was at a reasonably large junction in Glasgow. 30mph crossroads, two lanes in each direction apart from mine, where I'm in a single contraflow bus lane. My lights turn green, and the cars opposite and I move off. About 5 seconds after, a car hammers straight through the junction from my left to right at at least 30, missing me by a few metres because I'd been hauling on the brakes, and missing the cars opposite me by inches.

    Turns out someone had rotated the lights on the pole, so one of the repeaters for my green was pointing 90 degrees away from me, towards the car which should have been seeing red.

    Reinforced the benefit in my mind of assuming every other road user has their eyes shut, and of having really good brakes...

    Posted 12 years ago #

  25. Nelly
    Member

    "against the law."

    You are correct, and as you noted, I am a big boy and will take it on the chin if captured by judge dredd :-)

    Also 'against the law' is the excessive speed of many cars passing me every day.

    And without getting into a 'my lawbreaking is not as bad' debate, I know which offence is more dangerous and likely to cause serious injury or worse - and its not my wee 6.30am RLJ !!!

    Posted 12 years ago #

  26. Uberuce
    Member

    Like all of us I now have an urge to cross Morningside Road at 6.30am just at the Churchill junction, carrying a jar of seal blood in one hand and a jar of Great White Sharks in the other, and when the inevitable collision happens, lie on the ground being Quinted to death, screaming "You knew this would happen, Nelly! You knew! My blood is on your hands! The seals, I admit, are my fault!"

    Posted 12 years ago #

  27. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    "And without getting into a 'my lawbreaking is not as bad' debate, I know which offence is more dangerous and likely to cause serious injury or worse - and its not my wee 6.30am RLJ !!!"

    Thing is that's taken account of in the respective punishments rather than affecting the actual legality. Stealing a Mars Bar is clearly not as serious as conning old ladies out of their life savings, but both are illegal.

    'Quinted to death' *snigger* (y'know I work with someone who didn't get my 'Amity Island Police Department' t-shirt the other day and admitted she'd never seen Jaws).

    Posted 12 years ago #

  28. Instography
    Member

    I've come to the conclusion that if you accept the statistic that there is one cyclist death for every 42 million kilometres ridden, you can pretty much regard yourself as invincible.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  29. Nelly
    Member

    Ah - I misread bruces post, I thought it said "quinced to death" in reference to some fruit related crime..........

    Posted 12 years ago #

  30. Smudge
    Member

    @Instography Unless you are a particularly high mileage rider presumably? :-))

    @Nelly, hmmm Mboto Gorge eh?

    Posted 12 years ago #

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