Waiting for green, driver sees only red

Walter R. Whitaker of Raleigh is a patient man, but on this day, he has waited long enough for a green arrow.

Whitaker is facing east in the left-turn lane on Durant Road in North Raleigh, waiting to turn north onto Falls of Neuse Road.

Everyone else around the intersection gets a turn at green and goes. He sits pinned beneath a red arrow.

Twice. Three times. They come and go. Whitaker sits and waits. His red never turns green. Eventually he turns anyway.

"You have to run the light to ever go north," Whitaker told the Road Worrier. "Otherwise you can sit there for three days."

Traffic engineer Andy McKay of the state Department of Transportation sent a technician to check out Whitaker's complaint.

McKay reported that the vehicle sensor at the intersection, embedded in the pavement, works just fine. The left-turn arrow stays red until a driver pulls up to the white-painted stop bar. The sensor detects the car and triggers a green arrow.

But it won't work, McKay said, unless Whitaker keeps his car behind that broad band of white paint.

If he rolls past the stop bar and waits closer to the center of the intersection, his car is not detected, and the turn arrow stays red.

"He is not alone," McKay said by e-mail. "Our signal technician saw this happen several times in the short time he was out there today."

Wait a minute. The same thing happens to lots of drivers, so whose mistake is this?

Whitaker sometimes tries backing up at the intersection. He searches for a hidden sweet spot in the pavement, hoping his car will be detected and the light will change.

It doesn't work for him. Or for other people, apparently.

"If the technician saw this happen several times in just the time he was out there, it seems something needs attention," Whitaker said by e-mail. "They shouldn't just leave someone where they have to run a red light to get through the intersection."

The DOT engineer wasn't ready to agree, at first.

"I don't see it as our problem," McKay said. "I see it as a public awareness problem. They need to stop at the stop bar."

Then he dug out the old plans for the traffic signal at Durant and Falls of Neuse roads.

The vehicle detection loop under the pavement, which starts 60 feet back from the intersection, does not extend beyond the white-paint stop bar.

"I don't know why they did it that way," McKay said. "Most designs will take the loop five feet beyond the stop bar for that very reason, [to detect] those people who stop beyond the stop bar."

The DOT isn't ready to dig up the pavement and add more sensors to detect cars that pull too close to the intersection. But McKay's technician noticed that the stop bar was worn out and hard to see.

He'll requisition a few splashes of white paint, so drivers will be more likely to notice where they're supposed to stop.

Meanwhile, McKay had another tip for drivers who have trouble tripping a turn signal.

When you shift into reverse and roll backward over the pavement sensors, the light won't always change right away. The vehicle detection loops at some intersections are triggered only after a car waits there for at least three seconds.

"If you back up and immediately roll forward again," McKay said, "it won't work."