The Punishment Lights
*The title of this post is stolen from an episode of Weeds where a particularly annoying set of traffic lights is referred to as "the punishment lights"
What I forgot to mention about the week my parents were here...
There is a sets of lights I drive through on my way to work which is quite unreliable. It can take anywhere between 1-6 changes of lights before it'll remember to give you a green arrow to turn right. The first several times you get really angry. After a while you adjust. It becomes the set of lights you do your shoe laces up at, or brush your hair, eat your apple, drink your tea, put your hand moisturiser on, put your cuticle softener on, call Matt to say have a good day. Sometimes you get to do all of these things, the days when you think you'd like a rest to get your hair done, you go straight through them - thus the punishment factor, they evilly do the opposite of what you want. The other day I lost count how many changes of lights I sat there for. It was over 12 changes of lights, over 20 minutes. Not a single green right turning arrow. I was quite late for work. Eventually we all started to realise - it was never going to change. Eventually the two people in front of me went through the red arrow, and I did the same. I hope the red light camera was out of film! It was my only option as there are two lanes which turn right and I was on the inside (therefore trapped) lane.
I don't use the punishment lights anymore. The good old days of getting everything done at one set of lights is over. Now I do what any sensible person would do - I drive up to the next set of lights, do a U-turn, and go back down to the street I wanted.
What I forgot to mention about the week my parents were here...
There is a sets of lights I drive through on my way to work which is quite unreliable. It can take anywhere between 1-6 changes of lights before it'll remember to give you a green arrow to turn right. The first several times you get really angry. After a while you adjust. It becomes the set of lights you do your shoe laces up at, or brush your hair, eat your apple, drink your tea, put your hand moisturiser on, put your cuticle softener on, call Matt to say have a good day. Sometimes you get to do all of these things, the days when you think you'd like a rest to get your hair done, you go straight through them - thus the punishment factor, they evilly do the opposite of what you want. The other day I lost count how many changes of lights I sat there for. It was over 12 changes of lights, over 20 minutes. Not a single green right turning arrow. I was quite late for work. Eventually we all started to realise - it was never going to change. Eventually the two people in front of me went through the red arrow, and I did the same. I hope the red light camera was out of film! It was my only option as there are two lanes which turn right and I was on the inside (therefore trapped) lane.
I don't use the punishment lights anymore. The good old days of getting everything done at one set of lights is over. Now I do what any sensible person would do - I drive up to the next set of lights, do a U-turn, and go back down to the street I wanted.
posted by earthkissed | 7:01 pm
4 Comments:
I don't know how they work these things over there, but that light behavior sounds familiar. Here, they bury a wire in the pavement that works like a metal detector. If your car is mostly plastic or you didn't pull up to just the right spot, it never knows you're there and doesn't give you a light.
Or it may just be a piece of junk. :-)
Theres a set of lights like that in Katoomba. It will be three am and theres no cars coming the other way but it just won't give you a green for ages. Jumping out and pressing the pedestrian crossing request button works though.
there are several sets of lights like that in bris, and i always seem to find them in integral intersections where i live. (i.e. i can't get out of my street without going thru them). as jade said, i've gotten used to jumping out of my car and hitting the pedestrian crossing button. ;)
pitfinder - I'm in a ute, you can't get much more metal then that!
Jade and Sally - unfortunately there's not a pedestrian light that would work for this, it's a three lane road plus the two lanes that turn right... It's just really bad that the lights are so useless and don't work.
Still I like that everyone has their own personal punishment lights
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