Robots

A robot is a traffic light, and it comes up in the papers more than any other control on the road. The sequence is the first thing to fix, because a question can start you anywhere on it.

What the test asks

Which sequence is right, which sequence is wrong, what a fixed flashing amber means, when you may go against a red, what a green arrow lets you do, who beats the lights, and what you do when you have stopped past the line. The sequence questions are asked both ways round, so learn the loop rather than a list.

The sequence, as a loop

Red, green, amber, and back to red. After green comes amber, after amber comes red, after red comes green. Written from any starting point it is the same loop, which is why amber, red, green is right and green, red, amber is wrong. There is no phase where red and amber show together.

Where a filter arrow is fitted, the loop reads red, filter arrow, green, amber.

Green, and what it does not give you

Green means go, for drivers and for pedestrians. Turning left or right at a robot does not give you the crossing: you still give way to people walking across the road you are turning into.

Green is also not a promise that the road ahead is clear. If the exit is blocked, you wait behind the line, because blocking an intersection is an offence in every circumstance. And a robot that has been green for a long time is a robot about to change, so cover the brake as you approach it.

Amber, in sequence and on its own

Amber in sequence, on a robot that is working, means stop, unless you are so close that stopping would be the dangerous thing to do.

A fixed flashing amber, on its own, means the robot has failed. Treat the crossroads as if it had no robot at all: give way to traffic coming from the road on your right. A sign showing a robot with a cross through it is telling you the same thing in advance, that the lights are out of order.

The green arrow

A green arrow beside a red light lets you go the way the arrow points, and only that way. An arrow pointing up beside a red light means straight ahead is open while the turns are not. A left filter arrow means traffic turning left may go if the road it is turning into is clear.

That is the one circumstance in which a driver moves against a red light on the lights alone.

A police officer beats the robot

Where an officer is directing traffic, their signals are the ones you obey, whatever the lights are showing. The Code puts it plainly: the instruction of the lights overrides everything except a police officer controlling traffic. That is the second way you may move against a red.

Lanes at a robot

An arrow painted in your lane is an order, not a suggestion. In a straight ahead lane you go straight ahead, and you may not turn at all, whichever way the lights let other lanes go.

If you are already over the line

If the lights change while you are stopped past the pedestrian crossing lines, stay where you are. Reversing back over a crossing is worse than being where you should not be, because the person you would reverse into is the one you cannot see.

The mistakes learners make

There is no red and amber phase on a Zimbabwean robot, so any sequence that puts the two together is wrong. A flashing amber is not permission to go straight through, it is an instruction to work the crossroads yourself and give way to the right. And a green light is not a right of way over a pedestrian already crossing the road you are turning into.