What's funny in certain countries (right now for me the GCC) is that people believe if you flash with your brights at the right speed and frequency it will automatically set them to green, or shorten the interval on the opposing traffic direction so it goes green for you sooner.<p>Do other people believe this? I have watched people try for over 60 seconds or more until giving up, and I find this hilarious even today.
The traffic lights in Sydney are managed in a way to give priority to late-running public transport.<p>I was impressed to find out the traffic light system in Sydney, Australia (Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Coordinated_Adaptive_Traffic_System" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Coordinated_Adaptive_Tra...</a>) has been exported around the world to cities such as Singapore, Dublin and Hong Kong.<p>Interestingly enough,
Why doesn't the signal set all lights to red, leaving the junction clear for the ambulance to go through?<p>The best reason I can think of is if the idea is to improve traffic flow in general in favour of the ambulance (e.g. allow cars in front of the ambulance to move on through the lights), but that quicklt becomes a much more complex problem.
As far as I know in the Netherlands you get aside or stop when you see the strobe and hear the siren, to let an emergency vehicle pass, it is also allowed to run a red light.
This sounds like an overly-expensive implementation of the simple strobe-based signals used in the U.S. at nearly every intersection I've been through.