Few things boil the blood of drivers like having to stop for a red light in the middle of the night, when no cars are coming.

While countdown signals at intersections tell pedestrians how much time they have to cross before the light turns red, drivers also use them for the same thing.

They’re accustomed to the red flashing signal blinking down to zero and then cycling back to the white walking man, while the vehicle signal on the busier street remains green, so they can keep going.

But when they’re needlessly forced to stop at the same small intersections, even though no cars are waiting to make a left turn onto the busier street, it makes them question why.

A reader told us that last spring, several traffic lights in the same area started turning red when they previously remained green, unless a vehicle needed to turn from side streets.

If it happened only during the day, when there’s a lot more traffic, he said he could understand it. But he goes through the lights late at night, when there’s barely a car on the road and none turning from the side streets.

His nightly route takes him along St. Clair Ave. E., where he passes Midland Ave. and then approaches traffic lights at a T-intersection at Jeanette St., a residential street.

“That light was always green at night because no cars are ever waiting there to turn,” onto St. Clair, he said, adding it needlessly began to turn red every 60 seconds or so, and stays red for just as long.

“I don’t think I ever had to stop there once, but now it catches me most of the time.”

His route takes him from St. Clair onto eastbound Kingston Rd., where he encounters the same situation at the intersection at Bellamy Rd./Ravine Dr., and another T-intersection from a residential area at Parkcrest Dr.

Lights at all three intersections were constantly green late at night, but started turning red for no good reason a few months ago, leaving him to wonder if it’s on purpose.

STATUS: We sent a note to transportation services, asking if the lights were deliberately set to cycle to red, or if they need to be reset. The boss of traffic signals is away, but we got an email from someone else that said our request has been forwarded to the right person for a response.

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