Late Turn

When I learnt the one box on our line with hand-worked gates normally open to road traffic, I was taught to go down to them in good time and never to swing them with traffic approaching. The road's quite busy, but not so busy that it ever takes more than a minute or so to find a more than adequate gap - usually much less. The first action then is to get one gate pushed out into the roadway (both gates are hung on the same side of the road) and follow it out with the second gate. I certainly wouldn't ever boldly push the gate straight into the middle of a line of traffic - edging it out gently to indicate one's intention is one thing, but the laws of self-preservation suggest doing no more than that until all the traffic has either stopped or passed clear! The biggest problem there can be getting back across the road to the box after opening the gates to road traffic - a minority seem to expect you to magically disappear so that two lines of traffic can immediately start passing over the (quite narrow) crossing!