Martin Cassini asks the question, could we get rid of traffic lights?
From then on I started thinking: “Are we better off left to our own devices and is this huge system of traffic control blocking our progress and making us ‘see red’ in more ways than one?”
Yes, and sooner rather than later. Few things are more frustrating on the roads than waiting on an empty road staring at a pointless red traffic light. And don’t even get me started on the moronic idea that they improve roundabouts. Far better in that case to have a magic roundabout.
I’m not entirely sure that I go along with all of Cassini’s ideas – the removal of priority in its entirely opens up problems with busy roads. The idea that we should all be preparing to give way à la shared space might make sense on slow moving urban roads, but would make travelling at speed on a dual carriageway somewhat interesting, to say the least.
But, all that said, he makes a thought provoking argument and one that I have some sympathy with. Yes, let’s do away with the blight that is traffic lights.
Agree about the general middle of nowhere lights which seem to crop up in some of the villages round here too. Not so sure about roundabouts with most of the morons apparently never having heard of “give way to the right”.
Cassini sort of covered that when he pointed out that you can’t legislate for the idiots, so probably best not to bother. Most people do use roundabouts as they are intended. Putting traffic lights on them stops them being used as intended and they disrupt the flow – badly during heavy traffic. Better to go for the magic roundabout option.
re. Middle of nowhere lights , I don’t know why we don’t do as in the US , after a certain time they go to ‘flashing amber’ so caution and give way, but you don’t have to STOP at 1:00am when there’s nothing coming either way,
Obviously no good in cities, but villages etc. it might work
I seem to recollect that a town in Holland scrapped all its traffic lights a few years ago, with the result that there were fewer fatal accidents and traffic flow improved considerably.
Ah, found it!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533248/Is-this-the-end-of-the-road-for-traffic-lights.html
I think main roads should retain priority, though. When I arrived in Australia in ’71, the law stated that traffic coming from the right had priority, which may have worked fine with horses and carts, but wasn’t such a good idea with fast-moving cars and trucks. I think they changed it in about ’75, much to my relief. (I was driving 38 tonne trucks then – they don’t stop on a sixpence…)
The French had that until relatively recently but have changed to the more universal system of priority on the roundabout.
I always thought that traffic lights on roundabouts was an insane idea. I recall being stuck on a slip road for about an hour. The reason for the hold up was that the traffic so heavy that the roundabout was completely full, so even when the lights were at green nothing could move. Presumably roundabouts need traffic lights in cases where one or more roads are so full of traffic that there are simply no gaps for vehicles from the other roads to join. It occured to me that lights some way back on the approach roads would probably work better, giving everyone a turn, but in that case why bother with the roundabout?
In Russia, I saw total gridlock when traffic lights failed. Could be interesting tried in London.
All very well but what about pedestrians? Thesedays many drivers never stop to let you cross the road when confronted with a zebra crossing. Will we end up as in the USA where nobody walks on a pavement?
The principle is more pedestrian friendly as drivers have to look out for them and not assume that the traffic lights will do their thinking for them. Where shared space has been tried it has been very effective. Cassini is merely extending the logic of people taking personal responsibility.
EXCEPT for occasioanl special cases, where one-way alternating flows are needed.
[ Tight bridges, bridge/causeways over flood-plains on old roads – past “The Spaniards” in Hampstead, that sort of thing.
Otherwise – give it a go!
Okay, so how do we manage to deal with narrow roads with parked cars on both sides, for example?
I was specifically thinking of places where you CAN’T SEE the other end of the narrow space …
Tight bridges with a bend, old river-causeways, narrow blind corners (Which is the “Spaniards” example”.
These few, and they are few & far between, should still have lights.
But we certainly have far too many, otherwise.
I met a chap once in a pub,(he may have been wearing a tin foil hat, under his wooly one)
Who insisted that the placement and phasing of traffic lights is deliberate to ensure maximum fuel usage due to stop/start and thus increase the revenue from fuel duty.
He told me that the classic example is Pierhead Street, Cardiff which he had on good authority from someone at the council that it was impossible to pass along within the legal limit without hitting every set of lights.
Having driven along it , he may be right, I certainly wasn’t getting my ‘Urban cycle’ mileage along there
I favour incompetence as an explanation.