On Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:56:32 -0700 (PDT), Matty F wrote:

So, you are driving along at night and you reach traffic lights which
are red for you. Nobody else has been through the intersection for 10
minutes or more.

'Cause they have old dumb timed only lights, not ones that sense
traffic and change to let that traffic flow (if safe/possible to do
so). The ones on the narrow bridges here are timed (they cycle the
direction of flow not just sit in one state) but also sense the
traffic. I've approached them and had them started to change to red
to instantly reverse that change and let me through, only having to
slow a little. If there is something waiting the other side they let
that go first, only fair.

Why do traffic engineers make you wait at the red light for 10 or more
seconds before the green light for the cross road changes to orange?

I'm not sure I understand that. A lot of the delay is down to letting
slow traffic clear the junction (horse 'n cart, cyclists, tractors
etc) and letting stuff that tries to beat the red light clear as
well. On a fast road the you need quite a few seconds to let some who
has decided to race the forth coming red light to blat through the
junction at 60mph...

--
Cheers
Dave.