Guy turned in front of me. Bam! (pics only, no video)

[Gibson99]

i drive stick too. since US lights dont go yellow before green, my solution is to watch the signal for the cross traffic when i'm the first car in line, and just to watch a car or 3 ahead when i'm not first. i too put it in neutral at lights and set the handbrake if it's not flat/level. ironically, maybe people are patient about lights here. they only honk if you've been sitting at a green for more than 3-4 seconds, usually. and 99 times out of 99, the person is sitting a green because they're playing with their phone. no amount of visual warning that it's about to turn green will help these morons.

i expect that if they were to start changing to yellow before green in the US, it would be bad. there's another very well known set of lights that goes yellow before it goes green:

 

[Gibson99]

one other thing i thought of. i notice that in a lot of the russian dashcam vids i've seen, there is no all-red time like i mentioned earlier. the instant that one direction turns red, the next direction turns green. is there any delay in the UK, China or Aus like i mentioned, or do they switch instantly too? the yellow-then-green probably wouldn't be as bad as long as there was still a delay; for example: east-west turns red, then north-south turns yellow for 1-2 seconds, then green. that could kind of replace ART as long as people don't jump the gun and go on yellow...

but since i have absolutely zero faith in humanity, i fully expect people would start going on yellow.

 

[Nigel]

one other thing i thought of. i notice that in a lot of the russian dashcam vids i've seen, there is no all-red time like i mentioned earlier. the instant that one direction turns red, the next direction turns green. is there any delay in the UK, China or Aus like i mentioned, or do they switch instantly too? the yellow-then-green probably wouldn't be as bad as long as there was still a delay; for example: east-west turns red, then north-south turns yellow for 1-2 seconds, then green. that could kind of replace ART as long as people don't jump the gun and go on yellow...

but since i have absolutely zero faith in humanity, i fully expect people would start going on yellow.

In the UK they normally go:
East-West / North-South
Red / Green
Red / Yellow - ~ 2 seconds
Red / Red - long enough to clear the junction but normally zero seconds
Red +Yellow / Red - nobody can move for ~2 seconds
Green / Red - You can now go.

Sometimes there are extra delays to avoid accidents if the 2 seconds proves not long enough for the junction and you may get a pedestrian crossing period so you can't always expect to go following the other direction getting yellow.

A lot of people will set off on Red+Yellow if they think they are in a race but if you don't then you don't ever feel like you are holding people up as you might if you don't move after they have turned green.

 

[Gibson99]

that sounds like it has a similar effect as the ART in the US, and so you have fewer collisions.

another thing i've noticed only in downtown houston, where there are a LOT of pedestrians, is that the crosswalk signals have highly visible countdown timers in them. as they count towards zero, you as a driver know how much time is left on the green. when the crosswalk signal gets to zero, your light turns yellow. it helps traffic flow nicely between both vehicles and pedestrians - also lets me as a driver pay more attention to the clueless peds playing with their phones rather than watching to see when the light changes.

 

[M---]

We have the pedestrian timers at many (most?) intersections around the city. They are a great help for drivers and pedestrians-- I can see it from far enough away to gauge if I will need to stop or not. If I'm at a red light, it gives me an idea how long I have to wait until I get a green.

It's not perfect, though-- on my bike, I don't have enough steel to trigger the in-ground sensors at many intersections-- if I ride and stop above the sensor loop, it will trigger the countdown, but when it gets to zero, I has forgotten that I was there, and I don't get the light. I have two such intersections on my commute to work (when I bike).

Similarly, as a driver, I might see a countdown, so I start to slow down because the light's going to go red. Then all of a sudden, the countdown returns to "WALK," and I have to speed up, and presumably traffic behind me thinks I'm crazy.

Also, the countdown doesn't usually start until the last 15-20 seconds. Up until then, it just shows "WALK."

There is one *brutally long* wait that I have on my bike route. I pull up to the intersection, push the button, and wait. This light is "timed" with a light a kilometer away, or something like that. I have waited for three minutes before. And during this time, the other traffic (a major route) has the WALK sign the whole time, until the last 15 seconds, when the WAIT flashes. I should probably complain to the city about that one... I have seen many cyclists and pedestrians cross on their own (against the red light) many times. Vehicles can only turn left/right, and I've seen them give up after waiting, and go through. I should probably complain to the city about that intersection...

 

[M---]

Got my car back from the shop a couple days ago. It's all looking good again! $0 paid by me. $8200 paid by insurance! (egads!)

As the shop kept pulling things off, they found more twisted and mangled stuff-- twisted AC condenser, twisted radiator, etc, etc, etc...

 

[Gibson99]

i got mine back a few days ago too. only about $2300 in repair costs, but then yours was a much harder hit. think i'm gonna have to go back tho - it doesn't drive straight even though they said they did an alignment.

 

[kamkar]

Speaking off alignment.

I had my mitsubishi 4x4 truck go thry 3 of those at a mitsubishi dealer, actually the same dealer i worked for myself.
Still dident work, so i had to take my truck to another place, and hey presto my mitsibishi was fixed in 1 hour.

Same dealership where i met a guy who was there for the #2 rebuild of his gearbox, and his car had only done a fjew 1000 Km.
I got the hell out of Dodge, not only for the inkompetence in general but allso for the lying owner of the dealership.

 

[petepete]

This was an inch or two away and the driver knowing I was turning right came through a late yellow and you can see he was watching the other line of traffic knowing he was late - and wasn't watching me !

forgot to mention , this is a very badly designed crossroads and a week later a motorcycle was under the front of a van and its rider still layed on the road nearly an hour later ...

 

[reverend]

You nearly lost your front end then! You can see that's the sort of crossroad screaming out for a redesign!

 

[Gibson99]

Speaking off alignment.

I had my mitsubishi 4x4 truck go thry 3 of those at a mitsubishi dealer, actually the same dealer i worked for myself.
Still dident work, so i had to take my truck to another place, and hey presto my mitsibishi was fixed in 1 hour.

Same dealership where i met a guy who was there for the #2 rebuild of his gearbox, and his car had only done a fjew 1000 Km.
I got the hell out of Dodge, not only for the inkompetence in general but allso for the lying owner of the dealership.

a lot of small trucks and SUVs use shims to adjust camber and caster, but lazy shops will only adjust toe because dealing with shims is a pain in the (asterisk). i hated doing those when i was a mechanic, but i did them because i didn't want a comeback that i wouldn't get paid for. thankfully, the only thing that's really adjustable on my camry (and on M---'s Lexus too) is toe. camber and caster should only ever be out (in a vehicle like a camry or lexus RX) when something's bent or otherwise damaged (such as bushings).

 

[kamkar]

Yep that was the problem, they put some shims in and that fixed it, the mitsubishi dealership dident even wanna give me 2 new tires to replace those that got chewed up while they tried to fix it. ( just put 4 new tires on before they tried to align it the first time )
The shimming dident seem so bad to me, i was talking to the mecanic and looking over his shoulder all the way ( allways wise to pay attention when there is a chance to learn a little )
Mediocrity just sux, and it is allso what cost me my last job, and sent me into a depression.

 

[Gibson99]

Yep that was the problem, they put some shims in and that fixed it, the mitsubishi dealership dident even wanna give me 2 new tires to replace those that got chewed up while they tried to fix it. ( just put 4 new tires on before they tried to align it the first time )
The shimming dident seem so bad to me, i was talking to the mecanic and looking over his shoulder all the way ( allways wise to pay attention when there is a chance to learn a little )
Mediocrity just sux, and it is allso what cost me my last job, and sent me into a depression.

for some vehicles doing the shims isn't a big deal, but some you either have to take off the wheel (annoying when on an alignment rack) and/or reach in/thru muddy suspension, then try to swing a hammer or work a pry bar to loosen things up so you can even get to where the shims are. often the bolts for the upper control arm are not just muddy, but also rusted and/or siezed, and it's hard to work a wrench inside the wheel well - very rarely can you get air tools in there. another issue with shims is that they aren't all the same for all makes and models, AND they're a consumable item (like wheel weights) and it's easy for a shop manager to forget to reorder since shims aren't consumed as quickly as wheel weights are.

i was glad when most recent toyota trucks/SUVs started going to cam adjusters for caster/camber instead of shims, so i could do all the adjustments in basically one place, conveniently (and usually cleanly - no mud/dirt/salt up to my armpits) from under the vehicle.

even though i worked at a toyota dealership, i worked in the used-car side of the shop, so i had to work on everything, not just toyotas - stuff people traded in and stuff they bought at auction.

 

[petepete]

You nearly lost your front end then! You can see that's the sort of crossroad screaming out for a redesign!

Coincidence ...

big article in local paper this week saying in 2 years since a redesign there have been 7 serious accidents and in the previous six years before the redesign there were only 6 !!

 

[M---]

Got my car back from the autobody shop again today. A couple weeks after I got it back for the first time, I noticed fog accumulating in the left headlamp. Only the right headlamp appeared damaged in my collision, but I guess the left headlamp must've cracked its seal around the perimiter of the headlamp housing.

Bodyshop sent the pics off to ICBC. They took nearly a month to approve of the repair, but eventually agreed to pay for the repair! So now I've got brand-new headlights on both sides.

My total collision repair bill is now at $9,200. (since I was not at fault, insurance has paid it all directly)

 

[Deleted member 46308]

Is this the part where we say we saw it coming... It was avoidable, you should have stopped 5 miles before the intersection since you could see through the lorry with your xray vision just as well as the pickup driver, and should have known that in Soviet Russia, orange light runs you...

Lol do i need to include a sarcasm tag? glad you're OK.

I will never understand why some countries have the light go orange before it turns green. That's just an invitation for this exact type of crash. In the us, we have all red time, or ART. There's about one or two seconds each cycle where every single light in the intersection is red. This allows yellow light runners (running a yellow is legal here) to clear the intersection. There's no warning that a light is about to turn green, it goes directly from red to green. IMHO that's a safe way to program the lights even though it might not be as efficient or get as many cars through per minute. Safety first, right?

Spot on