I stand corrected! I got a note about my traffic light blog this week
from Chance Baxley here at my website. Chance and his co-workers
work with traffic lights and told me I was wrong about pressure plates.
Nope. No Pressure.
Electricity! There are wires laid into those cuts
you see in the pavement and they create what’s called an “inductance field.”
Chance tells me when a vehicle crosses over those wires, or “loops” as
they’re known, they detect the car’s metal and the cycle kicks in. He says
some loops are looped into coordinated systems that manage the flow of vehicles.
So that’s one reason why sometimes I don’t think the light “sees” my car.
It’s looking at the big picture. Although he did admit smaller cars could
be harder to detect because they have less metal in them. But there’s no
scientific proof of that. It still doesn’t change my basic premise. That
is you still have to pull up all the way to the line. Otherwise the system
may not detect your vehicle, big or small. And all of us behind you have
to pay for it. And my “zig-zagging” theory is still workable because I’m
making sure the loops detect me being, well, loopy! So thanks for the correction.
When it comes to telling you about traffic I don’t want to take any chances.
traffic lights
Atlanta’s a tough town to drive in. That’s why it’s important for all of
us to do our best. But I’ve noticed something very disturbing lately I
wanted to share. Did I miss something in Driver’s Ed (or maybe we need
Driver’s Ed)? Why do many of us NOT pull up all the way to the line at
the light? I see cars, trucks, etc., every day pullin’ up short. It drives
me crazy! Sometimes there’s enough room to pull another car in front.
Like, say, my car! What some of us fail to understand is if we don’t pull
up it won’t activate the traffic light timer system, especially in left
turn lanes. Then you have to wait for it to cycle through. There are pressure
plates at those lights and if you don’t pull up all the way they don’t work
and we get stuck longer at the light. CUT IT OUT! Pull up. The only reason
I can come up with why we don’t “finish the job” is fear. Many times we
see people turning left from the cross street “cut the corner” of the left
lane or turn lane. All I can say is if you’re that scared…then take the
bus. Otherwise, “man up.” You’re driving in Atlanta and we need all the
breaks we can get, not the brakes making you stop 10 feet short of the light!
