2 things first of all:

This only works at night
I dont know if it works on any other traffic lights then UK's



All you do is when you come up to them and there red, stick your full beam lights on, the traffic sensor at the top of that pic will 'scence' a brighter then normal light (ie a police cars blue flashy light) and turn green because it thinks your a emergency vehicle.

It has been tried and tested and AFAIK it works on all traffic lights which has them sensors on.

Thats Scott's Tip top tip of the day

Actually I don't believe you. Load of traffic lights are timer-controlled only, some are a combination of proximity sensor and timer. I don't believe the sensor is able to be triggered by a blue flashing light from one of the services, I've seen dozens of police/ambulance/fire vehicles rushing through red sets of traffic lights round here up north, and down in the south, so obviously the sensors don't work, otherwise the rescue vehicle would have made the lights go green!
If this was 1st April, then I could understand your post a bit better.

Quote from al heeley :

Actually I don't believe you. Load of traffic lights are timer-controlled only, some are a combination of proximity sensor and timer. I don't believe the sensor is able to be triggered by a blue flashing light from one of the services, I've seen dozens of police/ambulance/fire vehicles rushing through red sets of traffic lights round here up north, and down in the south, so obviously the sensors don't work, otherwise the rescue vehicle would have made the lights go green!
If this was 1st April, then I could understand your post a bit better.

Most UK lights are timer during the day, and sensor during night.

This might work, but ill have to try it sometime

Yup, I use that trick a lot in Norwich, and it works (if the traffic light has the sensors).

Doesn't seem to work in Uxbridge though, so many Londoners can't cope with such cleverness.

Here in Minneapolis, the do have a light sensor, but it's triggered by a specific strobe sequence, dot-dot-dot-pause-dot-dot-dot I believe. You use to be able to trigger them with your highbeams, but that hasn't worked for the past 8 or so years.

ho hum! this will be great if it works for me traffic lights hate me and allways go red when i pull up to them

AT LAST !!! Someone who believes my theory too. I don't drive at the moment cos I just havn't got round to it and I always tell my mate when approaching an empty junction which is showing red to flash his lights, and he's always like 'that doesn't work! its all done on weights..' Thanks for the article, he can now procede to stick it up his arse.

Old light systems are like that here in the US, but many people figured it out a long long time ago, and they changed them all to ground sensors since then. However the Police, Fire and Ambulances can change them with a device or something.

Quote from AndyC :

AT LAST !!! Someone who believes my theory too. I don't drive at the moment cos I just havn't got round to it and I always tell my mate when approaching an empty junction which is showing red to flash his lights, and he's always like 'that doesn't work! its all done on weights..' Thanks for the article, he can now procede to stick it up his arse.

I had this feeling for a while

Quote from Tweaker :

Old light systems are like that here in the US, but many people figured it out a long long time ago, and they changed them all to ground sensors since then. However the Police, Fire and Ambulances can change them with a device or something.

Yeah this is right. Many modern signals still have optical sensors, but emergency units have a special light frequency emitter that is pretty much the only frequency that will change the lights. Someone was selling these units on eBay a while ago actually. Hehe.

Yeah, the traffic lights here used to work like that, now the
busy intersections are timed and the lesser intersections have some sort
of sensor to them. You pull your car up a little and the light will change, if you are on the slow street of the intersection.

the taxi driver up here (scotland) do it. But it dosent work, since all the major routes lights are now remote controlled. The police and other emmergancy services, when blues and 2s are on, have a way to turn all the lights red in the area they are heading.

It works around here In a bigger town close to me, the whole main street works like that. It's a blast in the middle of the night

It's not a new thing. Look for the box on top of the camera. It looks like a little camera pointing towards you. Thats the light sensor. Most lights can change their pattern from Timed in Rush hour. Sensored at night or just switch themselves off at night.

Most lights don't change for the services though. They just pile through them. Maybe big citys get them sorted well enough but in general the emergency vehicle is through before the lights get a chance to react.

Plus they could never decide whether it was better to change the entire junction to red, or the entry for the emergency vehicly to green or what.

this thread isn't a new thing either; you boys are off by almost a whole year lol

In my experience 99% of UK traffic lights will switch to green when they realise you are waiting, as long as there is no traffic passing through from left/right. Flashing your lights at night is just a way of making them see you sooner.

I certainly don't think they react to emergency services approaching by switching to green though. It would be safer to just switch all of the lights to red wouldn't it?

this works in norway aswell =)

There was a light I would always hit on my way home from school and one night I was there especially late. So it's dark out and I'm on my little 250cc motorcycle. I came up to this light and it's red. I see the light for the road going across my path go yellow, then red. My light stays red as it's a delayed green to allow people going the opposite direction to turn left. There's no one else in sight. So I get ready to go, then the light for the street crossing my path goes green again! I said to hell with this and made a right turn, followed by a U-turn, followed by a right turn to get on the other side of the light. I think this particular intersection had weight sensors, and with me on it, the bike weighs a little over 400 lbs, simply not enough to trip the sensor.

Quote from Forbin :

There was a light I would always hit on my way home from school and one night I was there especially late. So it's dark out and I'm on my little 250cc motorcycle. I came up to this light and it's red. I see the light for the road going across my path go yellow, then red. My light stays red as it's a delayed green to allow people going the opposite direction to turn left. There's no one else in sight. So I get ready to go, then the light for the street crossing my path goes green again! I said to hell with this and made a right turn, followed by a U-turn, followed by a right turn to get on the other side of the light. I think this particular intersection had weight sensors, and with me on it, the bike weighs a little over 400 lbs, simply not enough to trip the sensor.

Dangerous lol - IMO - All of this is BS. And if i'm wrong then I think that these lights need to be changed because if YOU flash the lights and they turn green and the person on the other side has got a legal green then you can guess what could happen next... :moped: --------->:bananadea

lol that happened to some guy on the way back home from my parent's friends home, some porsche pulled up to a light (this was a Y turn), we were comming down the straight road, our light went red, we pulled up to the light.. then ours turned green again lol we all just looked over at the guy in the porsche and he just looked back laughing

i personally haven't avoided a traffic light, but i've been in a car when someone has lol, and it was like almost midday to, but no one was around so..

double

Quote from spsamsp :

Dangerous lol - IMO - All of this is BS. And if i'm wrong then I think that these lights need to be changed because if YOU flash the lights and they turn green and the person on the other side has got a legal green then you can guess what could happen next... :moped: --------->:bananadea

Obviously only one set of lights can be on green at any one time, well technically not neccessarily, but for argument's sake at a "normal crossroads" that applies

Approach a red, the sensor sees you, switches other directions to red, switches the light you are stopped at to green. If you flash it can "prompt" the sensor to do this sooner. Also, some of the crappy road-works temporary traffic lights have badly functioning or poorly aimed sensors, flashing your lights is a good idea if you seem to be stuck at a permanent red.

Lol, "It has been tested"

This 'trick' has been around for years and only really works at road works at night, it has been around for years incase you didn't know but why not just wait fo an extra few seconds than have other cars thinking your flashing at them?

Quote from Forbin :

There was a light I would always hit on my way home from school and one night I was there especially late. So it's dark out and I'm on my little 250cc motorcycle. I came up to this light and it's red. I see the light for the road going across my path go yellow, then red. My light stays red as it's a delayed green to allow people going the opposite direction to turn left. There's no one else in sight. So I get ready to go, then the light for the street crossing my path goes green again! I said to hell with this and made a right turn, followed by a U-turn, followed by a right turn to get on the other side of the light. I think this particular intersection had weight sensors, and with me on it, the bike weighs a little over 400 lbs, simply not enough to trip the sensor.

Weight sensors? That'd be at least strange. I know the problem though, as I ride a bike too. I think it's just some magnetic loop under the asphalt, and the motorcycle isn't big enough (or doesn't have enough metal, or whatever) to trigger it. So sometimes you just have to go with the red still on

Hmm, I suppose that could be it. I just assumed the little rectangle of asphalt framed by what appears to be metal was a weight sensor.