Avoiding red light, is there anything wrong with this?

[OllieJolly]

I haven't tried this myself although I have witnessed it a few times now. I'm sure anyone venturing into Buxton from the Cat & Fiddle road will recognise:



Approaching these lights, they turn red, traffic stops, someone will turn down the small left road and emerge right to the other lights (when there is little/no other traffic there) which then change to green, allowing them through, thereby avoiding the red light on the main road and even undertaking any car stopped at the white line on the main road.

Is this frowned upon? I've seen a number of cars do it and also a couple of bikes. I find it quite amusing. Obviously the circumstances where this works is limited.

Thoughts?

[akirk]

not illegal - but a gamble - if there is traffic approaching from that left road, or they have to wait for oncoming traffic to come up that road, then they could end up being slower...

generally speaking - anyone choosing to do that is saying something quite negative about their approach to driving / patience / common sense / etc.

[brisel]

Nothing wrong with doing that but as above, it's a gamble that won't always pay off. It wouldn't bother me much - life is too short to wry about such manoeuvres gaining a couple of places further up the road at best.

[markymarkthree]

Its called "cheating" and a true Englishman wont be doing that.

[dhutch]

By us there is a side road infront of shops, which can be used to avoid the lights is turning left. It's a bit narrow to be sensible, so few do. But there will be others a bit like this.

As long as it's safe and within the law...

[Pica-Pica]

Near us there is a roundabout with two marked lane on approach, ahead and right. There is inevitably a queue in the LH lane to ahead, so a few take the RH lane, go all the way around the roundabout to take the straight ahead route. I suppose it could be viewed as ‘driving without due consideration for other road users’, but I doubt that would stick.

Edited by Pica-Pica on Thursday 16th January 09:26

[Dave.]

Pica-Pica said:

Near us there is a roundabout with tow marked lane on approach, ahead and right. There is inevitably a queue in the LH lane to ahead, so a few take the RH lane, go all the way around the roundabout to take the straight ahead route. I suppose it could be viewed as ‘driving without due consideration for other road users’, but I doubt that would stick.

There's a lot of this on a particular roundabout I use on the way home from work.

The only issue is, it makes it harder for people in the left hand lane to get o to the roundabout as they are having to wait for the train of cars doing the full loop.

[Zetec-S]

markymarkthree said:

Its called "cheating" and a true Englishman wont be doing that.

Absolutely correct there sir. The only avenue for recompense would be to challenge said scoundrel to a duel.

[Solocle]

OllieJolly said:

I haven't tried this myself although I have witnessed it a few times now. I'm sure anyone venturing into Buxton from the Cat & Fiddle road will recognise:



Approaching these lights, they turn red, traffic stops, someone will turn down the small left road and emerge right to the other lights (when there is little/no other traffic there) which then change to green, allowing them through, thereby avoiding the red light on the main road and even undertaking any car stopped at the white line on the main road.

Is this frowned upon? I've seen a number of cars do it and also a couple of bikes. I find it quite amusing. Obviously the circumstances where this works is limited.

Thoughts?

When approaching a red light in a bus lane on my bike, I'll try to move over to the green light on the general lane. In one particular example, I'll just jump the red if I can't, as the bus lane reduces to a bike lane afterwards, so no conflict arises (except potentially with cyclists being siphoned off the shared use path adjacent, and I'm invariably faster than those folks). But that takes local knowledge (and knowing that the purpose of the light is to enforce merging between bus lane traffic and general lane traffic).

But if I can safely make progress, I'll try to do it legally.

Place your bets

[Graveworm]

dhutch said:

By us there is a side road infront of shops, which can be used to avoid the lights is turning left. It's a bit narrow to be sensible, so few do. But there will be others a bit like this.

As long as it's safe and within the law...

Not cheating and not wrong but be sure. A few weeks back the A3 was closed for a while Northbound as the air ambulance was landing at Hook Roundabout.. Parallel to the A3 is Hook Rise which appears to be a narrow N/S parallel. A car saw this and broke the dam, followed by a couple more then a solid queue..

Only problem is with parked cars this is definitely tight single-track and it is a dead end with a small turning area. Dozens of bumper to bumper cars facing nth realising that they had no way of moving and the lead vehicles trying to turn to go nose to nose. Obviously I felt guilty smiling at others pain. Like every snarl up, that seems impossible to unsnarl, clearly somehow it was, but not until long after HEMS, and the rest of us were long gone.

Edited by Graveworm on Friday 17th January 02:04

[Dont like rolls]

Zetec-S said:

markymarkthree said:

Its called "cheating" and a true Englishman wont be doing that.

Absolutely correct there sir. The only avenue for recompense would be to challenge said scoundrel to a duel.

Take that you bounder, BIFF !