I don’t know how many people are aware about the existence of “switches” at most traffic lights.
Send your letters to bctletters@caxton.co.za.
Often it is the “old” people who stop a fair distance from the traffic light stop line.
This means that if there are no other cars approaching the same lights from the opposite direction or someone turning, for example right, who activate the switch you could wait forever.
On the ground, near the stop line (that is the thick white line that does not go all the way from one side of the road to the other), you can see a few lines that look as if they have been drawn on the surface of the road with tar.
They differ in shape.
Some are in the shape of a square with the point facing away from you; another could be a pair of parallel lines going across the road and sometimes they are in the shape of a rectangle.
These lines contain the “switching” mechanism that will enable the traffic lights to change.
On some main roads, these switches are only on the secondary road leading into the intersection, as the “default” is for the green light to always allow the main road traffic to proceed without hindrance from the feeder roads.
I am sure that all of us drivers have either blown our hooters or overtaken these poor innocent souls who will not pull forward to activate the switch.
Often you get such a look from these “old” people when you overtake – and then activate the switch by your actions – because not long afterwards the robot changes and you can see the look of indignation change into “See if you had only waited!”
Well, I have also got out of my car and approached the person in the front car to ask them to move forward, but this doesn’t always work as they wind up the window and look ahead without acknowledging you – but sometimes this works because in their nervousness they inadvertently move forward over the switch and then you are left stranded in the middle of the road trying to get back to your car while the lights are still green.
I have said “old” in inverted commas because some of these old people are old but many of them (young) are so engrossed in their texting on their phones that a week could go by without getting through the lights.
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