Maybe it was a parade trying to cross the road - one clown at a time.

I was forgetting that it's pedestrian-controlled because a side-effect of that is that it does, in fact, help traffic turning right out of Perry Vale onto the eastbound A205.

However, you're right of course because that traffic has no lights controlling it. They just have to wait for a pedestrian to push the button then obey the 'No left turn' sign so that they don't express their gratitude to those button-pushing pedestrians by running over them.