people that do an emergency stop when the lights change are dangerous and wrong

[magrate]

I drive for about two hours everyday for my new job. Have to go through over 20 sets of lights. So many people think that as soon as the lights change you must stop. Aibu to expect people to still go though a second after they go red?

I dont accept the poor wording argument tbh.
"aibu to expect people to still go through a second after they turn red?"
Besides. I doubt all these people daring to stop at a, um, stop light, are actually doing emergency stops. What I suspect is that they are just stopping when you were expecting to go through the stop light and you are driving so close as to be inconvenienced by their rule -abiding driving.

So, so so many ppl drive like cunts.

I'm talking about lights on a 50 where people keep crossing the line completely and then amber comes so they slam on the breaks and stop, just because there is a large distance between the line and the light. They should carry on going rather than doing this and blocking yhr junction and doing an emergency stop.

EMERGENCY STOP!!Anything is better then the emergency stop in front of me this morning, (at a give way junction /narrowing in the road,) car in front was drving through, when a police car flashing its lights came 50 yards behind me, what did she do?yeah an emergency stop right in the middle of the road, I had to brake quickly, police car couldn't get through cos she then stalled right in the middle of the narrowed road, started back up and swerved right in front of me, I had to then overtake her and pull over to let the police car thru- stupid cow!!!! grrrrr!

In her update, the OP said that cars were crossing the stop line on green, and then emergency-stopping further on, nearly on the actual junction, because the lights have changed - that, surely, is not the right thing to do! If you have crossed the stop line on green, you should carry on and complete the manoeuvre, even if the lights then go amber and red?

"yabu
did you win your license in the lottery or what?"

Lol mousmous - I see plenty of bad drivers, and my comment is 'Did you get your driving licence by correspondance course??!'

Re. level crossings - sadly people do cross these when the lights are flashing. And it is hell for the train driver who cannot stop in time - the stopping distances for a train are huge, especially if it is going fast. They can't swerve either - all they can do is sit there and watch as they run someone down. It can take months for them to get back to work, and some train drivers never get back in the cab, after an incident like this. And even if the person gets out of the way in time, it must be an utterly heart-stopping experience.

Are you from a different country? Australia, perhaps? I was driving a rental car there about 10 years ago, stopped for a just turned red light and the guy behind me slammed into us , then blamed me for stopping.

The road rules for lights are the same here. As I think they are, pretty much the world over

But you didn't say people slamming on when the lights turned Amber.

aibu to expect people to go through a second after they turn red

Surely people should already have stopped after red? (non driver)
But a few days after my c section,the car in front slammed the anchors on,on amber,and my dh went into him,in order to avoid our own emergency stop,with me and newborn baby in the car.

Am I reading his right, you fucking on purpose drove into a car that had rightly stopped at an amber traffic light so you didn't have to do an emergency stop. Because you have a baby!

Ffs what about the person in front! What if they had a newborn baby or kids or anyone for that matter!

Your dh was too close to the cat in front, needs his licence taking off him

£100 fine and don't forget three points and a hike in insurance. I think you should be off the road personally.

She also talked about a specific junction, where people cross the stop line on green, then slam the brakes on when the lights change, when they should carry on across the junction.

In that instance, surely she is right that they shouldn't slam the brakes on?

But I absolutely agree that she is wrong to expect people to cross the stop line when the light has gone red.

It is a problem, though, that there are drivers out there who will chance it, and nip across the lights on amber or red. I see plenty of them when I am out and about in the car - driving in two lanes of traffic, I stop at the traffic lights (because I saw them go amber and slowed down to stop at them, as I believe the Highway Code says I should), and in the lane next to me, a car or cars who were going at a similar speed to me, and are in similar density of traffic, and who had the same opportunity as me to observe the lights going amber, sail through the red light!

Maybe the OP sees plenty of people doing this. Maybe she does it herself. And maybe this is what makes her think that everyone is going to do it. If so, she is wrong, and should be assuming that the drivers around her intend to obey the rules of the road. That's what I do. And if me obeying the rules of the road pisses other, less law-abiding drivers off, that's not my problem!

An emergency stop would have hurt me.
Which would have been caused by you dh, rather than the person in front!

Posted too soon

An emergency stop would have hurt me. and sod whether you hurt other person! The epitome of selfish

The fine for jumping a red light is only 100? Except when you smash into a car that has right of way & kill the occupants, or kill a pedestrian on a crossing...the "fine" is then much much more expensive, and you have to live with it for the rest of your life.

You are either stupid, or this is a wind up. If this isn't a wind up, op...please retake your test for the safety of others.

But if you've crossed the white line on green then there is no reason to stop! Like I said before, I don't believe there are junctions like that. The op says on a 50 road, think about it.
Driving 50mph, you cross the White line on green then the lights change to Amber and then red before you reached the actual light

differentnameforthis
"You are either stupid, or this is a wind up. If this isn't a wind up, op...please retake your test for the safety of others."

^ This plus YABU and obviously a crap and dangerous driver.

Lol mousmous - I see plenty of bad drivers, and my comment is 'Did you get your driving licence by correspondance course??!'

I think they give them out in cornflake packets over here...

You sound like a very dangerous driver, OP, expecting people to cross when lights are red. It's nothing to do with how high the fine is , it's about how dangerous it is for oncoming traffic. If someone was travelling towards the opposite junction and the light turned green for them before they had come to a stop, they would enter the junction at speed and would almost definitely collide with any car coming through the red light.

However, I will concede that no-one should be making emergency stops on amber. If you need to slam on brakes that hard, either you weren't paying attention to the lights before you got too close to the junction or you're braking too late or you're braking unnecessarily as you would probably have been able to cross safely on amber.

When a light changes to amber I will make a judgement as to whether I will make it across the junction before it goes red. If I judge that the light will turn red before I get there, I will stop. Sometimes fairly quickly, but never an emergency stop.

Thatbloodywoman - I cannot believe your DH would drive so dangerously and still not realise he was in the wrong after going into the back of someone. It scares me that people like you, your DH and the OP are on the roads, in charge of large lumps of metal that can crush people with attitudes like that. My DCs cross roads. The green man means cross, unless some asshole thinks it doesn't as they are going to fast to stop. Always always approach traffic lights with caution. They change regularly. That's the point.

Also, if you are in danger of slamming into the car in front of you if they brake suddenly, no matter where you are on the road or why they did it, you are driving too fucking close to the car in front of you! Back off and maintain a safe distance.

too fast (obviously).

There are traffic lights on a 70mph road near me. There are so many people who slam on because the lights start to change when they're too close to stop safely (and the lights change quite quickly), I'm surprised there aren't more accidents on that stretch.

I've done it and almost given my self whiplash was sore for days after. If you don't stop at them then you risk a collision with another car potentially doing 60mph+ if they didn't need to stop before there lights changed. They should drop the speed limit near those lights or have longer between amber and red so that you at least have a chance to stop without slamming on

I am constantly amazed at how many people run red lights though. Sometimes I will squeak through a junction at the last millisecond before it turns red and three or four cars will still follow me through. Dangerous and selfish.

I have been approaching a set of traffic lights on a 40mph road, despite the lights being green, I took my foot off of the accelerator and slowed down anticipating the amber light.
As I got to the lights, they changed to amber and I was doing approximately 15 mph with about 5 feet to go so I went through.

I got 3 points on my licence and a £100 fine because as it clearly said in the letter I received that the amber light was lit for 0.8 seconds meaning I just went through on red.
Since I had also slowed because I was turning left at the lights, it apparently took 1.7 seconds for my whole car to pass through the lights.

Your method OP would mean millions of drivers would be breaking the law and racking up multiple points on their licences.

I am even more vigilant at traffic lights now and have seen several drivers go through those particular lights on red. I admit I avoid those lights now where possible.
When the amber changes to red in less than a second, it requires a lot of concentration on a faster main road but that concentration and slowing down prevents me receiving any more points.
OP, YABU.

aywardOn3

There are traffic lights on a 70mph road near me. There are so many people who slam on because the lights start to change when they're too close to stop safely (and the lights change quite quickly), I'm surprised there aren't more accidents on that stretch.

That's pretty much the problem I have. People see red and assume they must slam the breaks on without the understanding that the lights on a high speed road are set up differently so they should just carry on even though the lights are red a few seconds is fine as they have crossed the point of no return.