brain failure

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 11 April 2009 05:53:54

So the other day I had what I thought was a major brain failure. I was driving to the hospital, and waiting at the intersection where I turn right. There is usually a green light with a red right-turn arrow, and after about 30 seconds, the red light goes off, and I can turn if there's a gap in traffic.

On this occasion, I was stopped at the red arrow, and the cars in the other direction had all passed, so I turned the corner. As I was driving out of the intersection I looked in my rear vision mirror and the car behind me wasn't following. That seemed a bit odd as the driver had been impatient a few minutes earlier. Then suddenly I had a picture in my head of the traffic lights and the arrow was still red!

OH NO! I'd broken the law! How did I not see that? I drive there every day - I'd been waiting a while! The red arrow is usually gone by that time!

This was all a bit of a worry, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

Then today my brother and I were going to the shops and I was describing my brush with the rebellion as we approached the intersection. The light was green with a red arrow and I said "see! That's what it was like! And for some reason I missed it!"

As I said that, a gap in traffic appeared and the two cars waiting to turn both turned, just to illustrate my point.

Turns out that they've changed the traffic light sequence and the red arrow now remains red unless the lights for the other direction are red.

That's a bit of a relief.