On 2013-02-10 03:05:53 +0000, Richard J. said:

Yes, and it's not just me, or some new fashion. Look up any book on
English grammar from the last 100 years and you'll see that the advice
is that collective nouns like "set" may be followed by a singular or
plural verb.

Indeed - as the original perpetrator of this heinous crime against
pedantry let me say that I would normally make it singular in formal
writing but it is also natural and not incorrect to make a group plural
- 'traffic lights' on its (their) own is cleary plural although it's a
singular set as in:

'The traffic lights are down at the junction.'

Adding 'the set of' doesn't mean we can't still use 'are' because the
lights are nearer to the verb - I think we can say:

'A set of traffic lights are on the blink.'

A true pedant would of course eliminate 'set of' as redundant.

E.