Possible Duplicate:
raw_input and timeout
raw_input() will wait for user input.  How to make it go after waiting a few seconds?
Possible Duplicate:
raw_input and timeout
raw_input() will wait for user input.  How to make it go after waiting a few seconds?
One potential option:
import select, sys
r, w, x = select.select([sys.stdin], [], [], 3)
This will block for ~3 seconds - any data present will be in r after.