Green Light, Raised Arm: Signals That Conflict
Dusk in a city. You are on a two-lane one-way street approaching a signalised intersection, and your light is green. In the middle of the junction a police officer stands facing your direction with his right arm raised vertically. Your lane carries a blue circular sign with a white arrow pointing right, so right turn only. The lane line on your right is solid white, and beyond it runs a marked cycle lane; a cyclist is coming up on your right, roughly level with your front wheel. Fifteen metres past the stop line is a marked pedestrian crossing, with two people standing on the right kerb looking towards the traffic. The street you will turn into has a signal at its far end showing flashing amber, because of a power fault in that block. A tram bell sounds somewhere behind you.
1. Your light is green, so what do you do about the officer with the raised arm?
Read the worked answer
You stop. A police officer directing traffic outranks the traffic light, the blue right-turn arrow and the lane markings - the light is an instruction from a machine, the officer is an instruction from a person on the spot, and the law gives his signal priority.
A raised arm means stop for traffic approaching from the direction he is facing. So you come to a halt before the stop line, not on it and not in the junction, and you stay stopped even though the light is green. Do not creep forward to 'see what he means'; a bike nosing into the junction is exactly the vehicle he has to work around.
Watch his hands and body rather than the light, and move off only when he gives a clear signal or lowers his arm. If you are already inside the junction when he raises it, clear the junction safely rather than stopping across it. The examiner's point: at any conflict, the hierarchy runs officer, then temporary signs and markings, then the permanent signal or sign.
2. You are turning right. What must you check and yield to before, during and after the turn?
Read the worked answer
The turn has three separate yielding problems, in order.
- The cyclist on your right. You are crossing a cycle lane and you have a blind spot exactly there. Mirror, then a shoulder check to the right; the cyclist travelling straight on has priority over your right turn. If he is level with your front wheel, you wait - a right turn across a cyclist is the classic urban left/right-hook collision.
- The pedestrians. Fifteen metres past the stop line is a marked crossing. Slow before you reach it and give way to anyone on the crossing; treat the two people on the kerb as a reason to be ready to stop, not as decoration. A pedestrian who is crossing, or is clearly waiting to step on at a marked crossing, has to be allowed across.
- The exit. Do not let the nose of the bike sit on the crossing while you wait for a gap in the street you are turning into. Stop before it.
Throughout, the solid lane line on your right means stay in your lane until the turn itself; you do not use the cycle lane as a shortcut or an overtaking lane.
3. When you reach the next junction it shows flashing amber instead of normal signals. What does that require of you, and why is it not the same as green?
Read the worked answer
Flashing amber does not mean 'go'. It means the signal is not controlling the junction and you must proceed with caution, applying the ordinary priority rules yourself.
In practice: slow enough to stop within the distance you can see to be clear, be ready to give way to traffic from the right where no sign or marking tells you otherwise, give way to anyone already in the junction, and look after pedestrians and cyclists who may have started to cross assuming the lights were out. The green light earlier told you what to do; flashing amber tells you to decide.
Two further points that score marks. First, the fault affects one block only - the previous junction was fully signalised, so do not carry the 'I have right of way' mindset across. Second, the change of regime should show in your riding: earlier braking, an upright and visible position, a check of your mirror before any change of line, and no overtaking of queued traffic near the junction, because nobody can predict what the others will do without a working signal.