What Happens if You Flash Your Brights at Stop Lights Around New England?

Honestly, who hasn't been in a situation where you sit at a red light and it never changes?

While early morning or late at night often tends to be when this happens (it's often been called the 'midnight light'), I've sat at a red light in the middle of the day and literally watched all lanes move through at least two to three cycles while I sat there.

It's weird that this happens, considering most traffic lights have the technology buried under the roads that sense when vehicles are sitting at traffic lights. However, in some of our smaller New England towns or extra busy intersections where they want to keep traffic moving, it's been an issue.

According to the Family Handyman, that tech adjusts the traffic signal so that cars waiting will soon see a green light. Some never turn green unless a car sits there or the lights are on timers. It then adjusts the timer to turn green sooner.

According to Family Handyman, the technology at a light doesn't trigger a change with the traffic signal unless it knows a car is there, and that could just be with sensors or cameras instead of anything buried under the road.

This means making sure you pull all the way up to the line in order for the sensor or camera to sense you.

Now, what about flashing your high beams to signal the camera or sensor that you're sitting there, or even worse, behind a car or two?

Sorry. As fabulous as that sounds, according to the Motor Biscuit website, those cameras or sensors only detect rapidly flashing lights at an equivalent of 14 flashes per second. That's to assist emergency vehicles, which already have the technology to turn all lights red if necessary.