I know this is hard to believe but there is a small percentage of idiots here that think that. I dont see them so much nowadays but I did see a moron doing this the other day. Our traffic lights here have small RADAR units on the top which activate the light sequence when cars approach. when these first appeared many years ago idiots would flash their lights at them and they would change! duh. it detected your car stupido. radar has nothing to do with light. Try telling that to some people though, they get quite angry. Angry at themselves mainly, for being so stupid for so long. This myth is passed from fool to fool via the gift of "look! it worked" This drives me up the wall, has anyone else encountered this stupidity or something similar?
2006-09-20 16:48:35 · 18 answers · asked by angus1745 3 in Cars & Transportation ➔ Other - Cars & Transportation
How do you know they are radar units and not just cheaper and simpler optical sensors? When have the government ever spent money on the most expensive and unreliable method of doing anything? Oh hang on they do it every time don't they! Train signalling, channel tunnel, motorways, airport runways and of course their salaries point taken.
But I did think that permanent signals used induction loops under the road and temp ones used optical sensors to reduce waiting times at night and programmable timers during the day. If I am wrong then OK but why does it "work" quicker if you flash the sensor directly than when you don't? Have you ever tried sneaking up on one without your lights on to prove it? The USA might have radar units but have you checked to find out if ours do? As a minor point radio and light are the same thing just different wavelengths so radar does have something to do with light
2006-09-20 17:56:52 · answer #1 · answered by xpatgary 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
This is an emergency services trick. If you do it early enough, the bright lights can trigger the system before it would detect the rest of your vehicle. It only works on a particular type of sequencer, though - you have to know which ones. This is why you see a lot of people flashing away with no effect. Pedestrian crossing ones are the best example of this. It will not work here. It also will not work if the sequence has already been affected by the arrival of other vehicles at other lights in the set. Basically, if you're just randomly flashing traffic lights, you've got maybe a one in ten chance of it having any affect. If you know the system, it's about one in four.
2006-09-21 04:16:16 · answer #2 · answered by lickintonight 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm one of the CRAZY people who does this.
The reason is simple, although not yet proven.
When an ambulance, police car or fire engine on an emergency call is approaching a set of traffic lights, they don't want to be held up waiting for a green light, so the lights have sensors which detect the flashing of their emergency (blue) lights. The lights think "oh no - emergency vehicle" and change to let it through. So when I approach a set of lights around dusk or after dark, I flash my lights in the hope that they think I'm an emergency vehicle and change to green.
I believe there's probaby a radar detector on them as well, but how can radar detect the difference between an ambulance and a Mercedes Sprinter? Only the flashing lights.
That is why I (and many others) flash their lights at traffic lights.
2006-09-21 03:23:42 · answer #3 · answered by wally_zebon 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The ones in the US, (only some of them) are set up to change when a car approaches. Sometimes the mechanism is not triggered, but can be by flashing your lights at it. These people that you call idiots, may have visited the US, been from the US or knew someone that told them this from the US. Word travels across the globe, and it stands to reason that someone spread the word from here to there, and when your late and the light won't change, why not give it try. When it works once, then you think it will work again. We're not all just idiots, some of us have been there.
2006-09-20 23:58:38 · answer #4 · answered by srrsmr 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
because there are idiots born every day? no actually it can be becaue the magentic field is what the signal is absedon and bgy flashing lights you can change the field...but so few sensors are actually based on this thesde days it is realy nonsense. most are based on heat from the engines and/ or strain gauges buried in the concrete etc any more....
2006-09-20 23:56:07 · answer #5 · answered by Jack Kerouac 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i have never flashed at them my self after when a kid cycling at road work ones finding out if on red & know other car was comming they would change auto me and my mate had fun that day trying too cofuse the bloody things we were ony 8 years old thow. so yes i agree with you, there are some muppets out there infact lots
2006-09-21 02:08:15 · answer #6 · answered by witheringtonkeith 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Gavin, that is awesome.
I've never been to your fair country, but I had a cab driver in NYC once that honked every time he heard another horn. After about 10 minutes, I couldn't take it anymore. He didn't even know he was doing it, even after I pointed it out.
As my wife always says, "There's no explaining crazy"
2006-09-20 23:53:24 · answer #7 · answered by Ignoramus 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
What planet are you living on?
I drive up and down and around the UK (40,000 miles a year). I've never seen this crazy behaviour before.
2006-09-21 02:45:49 · answer #8 · answered by thebigtombs 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
For the same reason they think that sounding their horns in traffic jams makes the problem clear faster.
2006-09-21 00:03:57 · answer #9 · answered by Anchor Cranker 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
because when police cars aparoch them with flashing head lights they change to green because certain traffic lights have sensors in them so ive been told
2006-09-21 00:01:55 · answer #10 · answered by cyberhighbenator 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋