SPECIAL REPORT: Traffic Lights Can Have Drivers Seeing Red

It's a busy throughfare, and the Gordon Highway would be chaos without traffic signals. So,  motorists have no problem with the lights, right?

“One time, I was going to sit and time them on Gordon Highway because I really don’t like them,” said a driver who didn’t want to go on record and give his name.

In Augusta, there are 262 intersections with traffic lights.

Tom Kimbrell delivers papers for a living, he knows most of them well, and familiarity breeds contempt.

"There's a problem with some of them, like one down here at Highland and Gordon Highway, and the one at Sibley Road and Gordon Highway," he said.

Any others?

”Shoot, there's so many of them,” said a driver.

Many motorists get cross at the busy intersection of Bobby Jones Expressway and Washington Road.

Levi Young knows about it, he works in the auto parts store next to the intersection.

”I know the light lasts for five or six minutes at a time especially at five o'clock or so cars will be back down way over here and people get kind of pissed off,” he said.

Cars fly down the Bobby Jones, until they get to the red light at Mike Padgett Highway.

“Just a little bit too long, it takes too long, said a driver who we had time to talk waiting at the red light.

You are going to be seeing a lot of red if you come off a side street onto a main drag like Washington Road.

Coming up Eisenhower Drive to Washington Road we timed the light to see how it takes to go from red to green, it was two minutes ten seconds.

And it seemed even longer for the driver waiting to go.

“I've been sitting here 15 minutes,” she said.

Augusta Traffic Engineer Steve Cassell takes timing of signals seriously and understands driver’s frustration.

“Most of the complaints you are going to get are people who are waiting at the intersection the longest it will be is your left turns they have to wait on a green light or on a side street,” said Cassell.  

Modern technology is supposed to help signal lights get in sync with traffic.

But intersections can be overwhelmed with cars, that leads to waits and waiting drivers can be impatient, so it's a balancing act for traffic engineers the lights can't be green for everyone. 

And to move traffic the lights are always greener on the busy side of the street.  

“Mostly what we looking for is delay in the intersection as well as the capacity we try to get the most bang for our buck at our intersections get traffic through it so they can get on to their destination,” says Cassell.

They are the two minute speed bump in our can't wait, got to go now world.

The signals that always seem to switch just to make us stop and wait.