Have you ever felt confused when you see a lot of traffic lights all close together? If so then you’re not alone as many drivers find it overwhelming. However once you understand that some of them are repeater lights for you, and others are repeater lights for drivers coming from different directions, it will make a lot more sense.

Repeater lights help when you’re the first car waiting at the white stop line at a red traffic light as it can be awkward to look up and see your traffic light above your head. So one or more repeater lights are placed further ahead to help you see when the lights change colour.

If you’re not sure if they’re separate traffic lights for someone else or your repeater light, look to see if there’s a white stop line on the road with them or not. If they don’t have their own stop line then they’re repeater lights. If they do have a separate stop line then they’re separate traffic lights, sometimes it’s a pedestrian crossing, other times there’s a side road there. The more you notice the stop lines and which traffic lights they belong to the more it makes sense. If you see a roundabout with traffic lights, have a look at where the white stop lines and repeater lights are.

Traffic lights that control junctions usually have at least one repeater light, pedestrian crossing traffic lights usually don’t. The further ahead you look, the easier it is to spot the repeaters.

When you’re a passenger or on foot, it’s a good time to start looking for repeater traffic lights, see if you can spot them.