gs wrote in message ...

Whilst we at it can we have flashing Amber traffic lights meaning give way
on traffic lights that are not as important during late evening
and early morning?

anymore ideas?


Like the idea. Traffic lights are too "hard" in this country: they
have either a STOP or a GO aspect, with nothing in between. There are
many situations in which a STOP is just being overcautious for the sake
of it. All this STOP/GOing (rather than a generally lower speed overall)
increases pollution and vehicle-wear.

We could have a system where a flashing RED preceeds a full
RED at the next junction, warning people to slow down because
they're going to have to stop soon. This would have to be arranged
so that if the flasher unit failed, it would default to solid red.

We could have variable speed limits: "slow to 15mph because the
signal ahead of you is RED" (and if you don't slow, a carstop comes
out of the road to apply the brakes)

also switch off pelican crossings after say 00.30 as people
have a habit of pressing the button as the pass them not intending to cross

We could have "cancel" buttons on pedestrian crossings in case
the crosser manages to get across before the lights turn in their
favor.

I'm somewhat surprised by this statement of yours though: it's been a
long time since I saw any vehicle stop at a RED pedestrian crossing
where there were no pedestrians.

In fact, I've noticed a general trend over the past twenty years or
so to treat some traffic signals as "less serious" than other ones,
(except in the paragraph below):

We could also have blue lights to augment the R/G/A ones, meaning
"emergency service using this lane" in order to get the idiots to
move out of the way when an Ecnalubma is trying to get past a bunch
of people who won't cross a red light to let it past despite the
fact that all the conflicting traffic has stopped specifically to
let the Ecnalubma through.


Richard [in PO7]