It occurred to me that it's probably not legal to trick traffic lights to work in your favor. Just a hunch, though. :-)

I remember hearing that the entire fleet of MetroRapid buses here in LA have this light-greening technology built in. If I recall correctly, it doesn't turn a red light green, but it will hold a green light for a few extra seconds when a bus is approaching. So, you could always just follow the MetroRapid buses...but then you'd be stuck behind a bus.

...waiting for the light or doing all that fakaktah clicking?

The high-beam trick used to work just fine in my home town, and in the town where I went to college.

The trick was to A) note that the light in question had an electric eye atop it (usually, crosstown routes favored by emergency vehicles did have it)
...and B) you had to flicker your high beams at EXACTLY the same rate at which a police car/fire truck's bubble lights alternated.

It doesn't work anymore, where I live. But it used to. Perhaps it's because the high-powered, ultra-bright strobe lights that are common now, are far brighter than car headlights? Might one be able to trigger the sensor with off-road lights? Hell, I don't know.

It's not just an urban myth, though; I used to do it; and my friend Jim got a HUGE ticket from a very angry cop who'd seen Jim trip a green light in his favor using the technique described above.

So, the other day, I was at my local coffee haunt when a cop car that had made a stop in for a cup of joe pulled out of the parking space with lights flashing. And I'm thinking, "Wow, they got a call." I watch to see how they are going to handle this - pulling out of a tight driveway onto a busy street. People are staring. I'm looking forward the rush that I feel from screaming wheels and screeching siren.

The siren starts. The cop pulls out and makes and awkward left turn onto the street. Cars everywhere are pulling over and getting out of the way. The cop car drives abotu 20 yards. Turns off the siren. Turns off the lights. Drives away normally.

If cops can use a siren and lights to pull out of a driveway because they don't want to make a left like the rest of us, I feel like we should be able to trigger lights any damn way we please.

The high beam-flashing thing used to work in my town too. But because of racing, they've actually changed the lights to operate on some new kind of algorithm, in which the the light never changes in your favor, but rather changes against you. So if you are driving down the street late and night and there's a grenn light ahead, it will turn red as you approach. AND IT WON'T TURN GREEN AGAIN UNTIL ANOTHER CAR APPROACHES THE INTERSECTION FROM ANOTHER DIRECTION. Talk about a waste of time and money.

It's not Morse Code for "I'm an idiot," but does happen to spell out "I M EMS" in Morse. "I am Emergency Medical Services (EMS)"? Interesting.

Hello Andrea, I'm not trying to make an excuse for bad conduct if that's what it was but having been there I can tell you there may have been more to it than you saw or knew. From your vantage point it looked like a cop using his lights and/or siren to make an illegal turn. Perhaps. No one knows but him/her. Or it could have been he/she DID get a high priority call and then moments later was recalled. I cant tell you how many times I've been racing to a scene dodging cars, light and siren going too be recalled. At that point it all looks exactly like what you saw. It's an everyday situation in polce work and the officer doesnt have the liberty to come back to the coffee shop to explain what happen to curious onlookers. Next time your talking with an officer ask him how often that situation has happened to him/her. Hope this helps. Every day above Ground is a great day!