28 August 2009

Traffic Lights in Queanbeyan

| squashee
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Sorry for a less than exciting post, but I am just wondering if anyone else has become annoyed with the RTA in Queanbeyan for changing the traffic light settings at the intersection of Crawford Street and Morisset Street in Queanbeyan.

Until recently, there have been very few traffic issues there as the lights allowed for a smooth flow of traffic. There was the allowance to turn if safe and there appeared to be very few, if any accidents.

Now, some smart person at the RTA has decided to change the traffic light settings so that there is only turning on green arrows and the change times have been extended. Now, instead of waiting only seconds every time, we have to wait for minutes and minutes every time we have to use the intersection.

This new situation is going to lead to more accidents as people are going to be getting frustrated due to extensive waiting. How long will it take the RTA to wake up to itself?

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GregW and Woody – I have the pleasure of informing both of you that the RTA must read the RiotAct. After a few weeks, someone with access to the traffic light controls has used their common sense and reverted back to the logical traffic light signals order.

I would like to think that, as people have mentioned, RiotAct can make a difference when there is something obviously messed up in bureaucracy and red tape.

^^^ hahaha yep I go through that intersection every day, except I’m the “1 car wishing to turn right from Drakeford Drive”. I love it how we get to go first! 😛

More roundabouts I say! Waiting at traffic lights sucks!

You complain about signals in Queanbeyan, what about the lights at the southern intersection of O’Halloran Circuit/Summerland Circuit/Drakeford Drive in Kambah. Now if I miss the right turn from Drakeford Drive onto Summerland Circuit, I can wait upto 8 minutes waiting for another car to set the sensors off on O’Halloran Circuit or Summerland Circuit & the lights will change within seconds for them. Also in afternoon peak there could be 1 car wishing to turn right from Drakeford Drive onto O’Halloran Circuit & 6 cars wishing to turn right onto Summerland Circuit, but that 1 car gets to go before all of us.

It is actually quicker to dash down a side road near the self storage place & come onto O’Halloran Circuit to meet the lights there, rather then wait on Drakeford Drive.

So that people can understand my above message, a view of this intersection can be found at http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii421/JulianHamstead/RiotACT1.jpg

Felix the Cat9:50 pm 28 Aug 09

I seem to recall hearing about a major accident somewhere else in NSW (Sydney?) a few months back where a car turned in front of oncoming traffic thinking the other traffic had a red light and so this traffic light re-phasing may be a statewide recommendation from the investigation of the accident. I could be wrong though.

Woody Mann-Caruso6:26 pm 28 Aug 09

Hmm. I’m torn on this one.

On the one hand, we have a department staffed by expert engineers with access to buckets of data about the intersection and years of experience designing intersections to maximise traffic flow while balancing the risks to drivers and pedestrians.

On the other hand, we have some guy who’s prone to melodrama (minutes and minutes, oh my!), who assumes everything is fine because nobody seems to have died at the precise moments he drives through the intersection (and knows absolutely nothing about the intersection outside those times), who assumes that experts are idiots, and who has a mindset that includes the real possibility of life-threatening rage or deliberately reckless driving because of minor traffic delays.

It’s quite a conundrum.

Thoroughly Smashed5:02 pm 28 Aug 09

And when it isn’t a knee-jerk reaction, it’s often a regression fallacy anyway.

GregW said :

Believe it or not squashee, but these people are actually significantly more qualified than you, more experience, AND actually have the statistics relating to traffic flow and accidents to back up there decisions.

“How long will it take the RTA to wake up to itself?”

How long will it take before Australians start to realise that in the vast majority of the cases where they question experts on their chosen field, they will be wrong.

Most things get done as a result of a knee jerk reaction to something rather than some expert sitting down and working something out. Sadly that is the way it works now days.

So for example, 1 person may have been hit at this intersection (in 50 years). To me that is acceptable risk, but knee jerk reaction (to be seen to be doing something) is to install lights.

Thoroughly Smashed4:28 pm 28 Aug 09

Pesty said :

So does that mean that those who choose to be politicians are, as presumably as they are experts in their chosen field (or so they tell us), in the vast majority of cases right? If a local driver says the lights aren’t so efficient as they were previously, then he / she is right to say so. by doing so in a forum such as this I’m sure the RTA will get the message.

Politicians aren’t responsible for setting the timing and phasing of traffic lights, that’s what traffic engineers are for.

GregW – in this situation he may not be wrong. The experts who choose to install ‘red arrow’ traffic lights may not be making the ultiamte decision. Case in point, the ‘one size fits all’ approach to installing bike lanes on every piece of roadworks in the ACT whether or not it is suitable, needed or effective for the particular piece of road and which often ignores the negative impacts on motorists of having these bike lanes. There are other example, particularly the number of loading zones and taxi zones in Civic which do not turn into to legal parking on weekends or after hours.

GregW said :

Believe it or not squashee, but these people are actually significantly more qualified than you, more experience, AND actually have the statistics relating to traffic flow and accidents to back up there decisions.

“How long will it take the RTA to wake up to itself?”

How long will it take before Australians start to realise that in the vast majority of the cases where they question experts on their chosen field, they will be wrong.

So does that mean that those who choose to be politicians are, as presumably as they are experts in their chosen field (or so they tell us), in the vast majority of cases right? If a local driver says the lights aren’t so efficient as they were previously, then he / she is right to say so. by doing so in a forum such as this I’m sure the RTA will get the message.

Believe it or not squashee, but these people are actually significantly more qualified than you, more experience, AND actually have the statistics relating to traffic flow and accidents to back up there decisions.

“How long will it take the RTA to wake up to itself?”

How long will it take before Australians start to realise that in the vast majority of the cases where they question experts on their chosen field, they will be wrong.

Where are you going that an extra cycle of the lights is going to cause the end of the world?

Welcome to the future. We’ve had crappy traffic lights here in the ACT for years.

Holden Caulfield9:30 am 28 Aug 09

Probably minutes and minutes.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy9:21 am 28 Aug 09

Stupidity. Turning across oncoming traffic at lights is very common in NSW, and included as part of the driving test.

The more we dumb down driving, the skills people will have, and the more unnecessary accidents…

Thoroughly Smashed9:17 am 28 Aug 09

Minutes AND minutes!

If I understand your description of the changes correctly it was probably done for pedestrian safety reasons, have you contacted the RTA?

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