davieG Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 BBC We rely on traffic lights to tell us when to go. And when to stop. We should replace that with common sense, argues traffic campaigner Martin Cassini. It was a day in Cambridge in 2000 at a road junction where normally I would wait for three signal changes to get through. This time it was deserted and as I breezed through without incident or delay I saw that the traffic lights were out of action. 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?" First, the statistics. The latest annual figures show there were 24,500 deaths or serious injuries on the roads in a year in the UK. The numbers have been declining steadily but it seems to me that a traffic control system that presides over those sorts of figures is still getting something profoundly wrong. One estimate puts the annual cost of accidents at between £15bn and £32bn and in my view most accidents are not accidents. They are events contrived by the rules and design of the road. As a driver, when you see a green light, are you watching the road? You're probably watching the light. Driving recently, I was about 20 yards away when lights changed to amber and I thought, shall I put my foot down and try to beat the amber. I knew it would be a long wait at this set of lights. Luckily I did not. As I stopped, between the traffic light poles a pedestrian appeared. If I had put my foot down it would have been a disaster. People think traffic lights are a guarantee of safety but the latest audit from Westminster City Council, for example, has shown that 44% of personal injury accidents occurred at traffic lights. I started filming junctions wherever I found the lights were out of action and filmed after the engineers had got the lights working again. I started a campaign, now called Equality Streets and initially known as Fit Roads, standing for Filter in Turn. The idea behind it was that we can make roads fit for people by letting human nature take its competent and co-operative course. Instinctively, we want to be kind to each other, especially out on the road. When you first meet a stranger, unless you're a mugger, you want to be nice to that stranger. We all have relationships with strangers in their thousands or millions on the road but road user relationships are corroded and corrupted by the system of control which makes us almost have a greater respect for a traffic light than for a human life. The fatal flaw at the heart of the system is priority. Traffic lights are bad enough - they make us stop when we could go, they take our eyes off the road, flouting the most fundamental safety principle but they are only the symptom of a dysfunctional system. The unseen spanner in the works is the idea of main road priority. It was introduced in about 1929 when the authorities were trying to work out how to regulate the new form of locomotion - the motor car. Main road priority licenses main road traffic to plough on regardless of who was there first, including side road traffic and people on foot waiting to cross. If you're driving along a main road do you even notice that mother with a pram on a traffic island trying to cross the road? You might notice her but you can't really stop and let her go if there's a 10-ton truck on your tail, especially if there's a green light ahead. The intolerable conflicts that arise, arise purely and simply from this rule of priority. So what did they do to solve the problem of priority to enable us to cross the road in relative safety? They put up traffic lights, so they make us "stop to avoid the inconvenience of slowing down", to quote traffic writer Kenneth Todd. If the lights weren't there, naturally we would approach slowly and carefully and see what other people were doing and filter through, but the traffic lights make us speed up to beat them. But what about the maniacs? If we had no traffic control, what would happen? You can't even legislate for maniacs, so why hobble the vast majority with "one size fits all" rules devised to catch the hypothetical deviant? My solution is to remove the fatal flaw at the heart of the system - the original sin of priority, because once you've removed priority you've removed the need for traffic lights and the need for speed because we're in no rush any more. We're not rushing to beat that light, we're not stressed out waiting in a queue that's caused purely and simply by that red light. Traffic volume can be a drama but volume plus control equals crisis. If you're leaving say, a pop concert in a car, the volume of traffic we can live with. What gets our goat is if we're sitting at a red light for no reason other than that it's red. In Portishead near Bristol where I showed my video, The Case for a Traffic Lights Trial to the council, a trial began on 14 September 2000. The lights were switched off at a junction where there had been excessive queues and within minutes of the lights being bagged over the queues disappeared. That trial has gone permanent and the monitoring has shown that journey times fell by over half with no loss of safety. Various organisations have put the cost of lost productivity to the UK economy as a result of congestion at £20bn so in my opinion traffic system reform is a rich source of painless spending cuts. This is an edited version of Martin Cassini's Four Thought talk for BBC Radio 4. Hear the full programme on Wednesday, 16 May at 20:45 BST or download the podcast.
Guest Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 Anyone who says that we should rely on common sense is asking for trouble. Common sense went out of fashion in about 1964.
goose2010 Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 The problem with common sense - most people don't have any!
Dan Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 How can you rely on something that isn't even displayed in this article alone? I'm a learner (twat I know) and I can tell you what a stupid idea that would be.
MikeyT Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 I didn't need to have to even read past the first line that's highlighted in bold, to know that this idea is absolutely ludicrous.
Zingari Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 Anyone who says that we should rely on common sense is asking for trouble. Common sense went out of fashion in about 1964. Yes , I was considered quite a trend setter back then
davieG Posted 17 May 2012 Author Posted 17 May 2012 I didn't need to have to even read past the first line that's highlighted in bold, to know that this idea is absolutely ludicrous. What about the last paragraph In Portishead near Bristol where I showed my video, The Case for a Traffic Lights Trial to the council, a trial began on 14 September 2000. The lights were switched off at a junction where there had been excessive queues and within minutes of the lights being bagged over the queues disappeared. That trial has gone permanent and the monitoring has shown that journey times fell by over half with no loss of safety. Various organisations have put the cost of lost productivity to the UK economy as a result of congestion at £20bn so in my opinion traffic system reform is a rich source of painless spending cuts. There may not be a justification for getting rid of them all but there seems to be far too many in unnecessary places the same applies to those awful mini-roundabouts. Having worked in the highways department it's known that in many instances the installation of traffic lights increases the number of accidents and deaths as people adopt an I'm not going to stop if I can help it attitude whereas with no lights they approach situations more carefully and considerately. The problem is the more rules and regulations you introduce the less common sense people use and believe if there's not a rule saying I must stop and let someone in then I wont. I'd be interested in see the stats for the difference between Zebra and Pelican Crossings because the Zebra one's strike be as being much more efficient and instant for both the pedestrian and the car driver.
Guest MattP Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 Having driven round Sri Lanka a few weeks back an almighty "no" from me. Common Sense in Britain 2012?
StanSP Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 I didn't need to have to even read past the first line that's highlighted in bold, to know that this idea is absolutely ludicrous. Same. I read on just out of curiosity though, and still came to the same conclusions. Having driven round Sri Lanka a few weeks back an almighty "no" from me. Common Sense in Britain 2012? Same, again, but in India. Don't think I've ever been so scared in my life as I was as a passenger in the car. We even drove on a bridge, and if you looked down outside the window, you could see gaps in the 'road' down in to the water ::.
James. Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 India is hilarious on the roads. In fact I used to cross on foot a similar junction to that video above every day on my way home from work in Mumbai. Somehow it just seemed to work even when you threw cows, people, rickshaws, beggars and dogs into the mix I rarely, if ever, saw a crash.
Bellend Sebastian Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 I listened to this last night. It's not quite as bonkers as it might sound, and I think he raises some good points. Not sure how realistic some of his views are - he's got a more positive view of human nature than I think I have for starters. I can see why he's talking about it though - If the forecasts for the numbers of vehicles on the road in the future are to be believed, traffic management will become an even bigger issue in the years ahead than it is already, and as he points out, there's something wrong in the current set up, be it the system or the individuals in it, if so many people are still being killed and injured, even if it's fewer than previously
Guest MattP Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 India is hilarious on the roads. In fact I used to cross on foot a similar junction to that video above every day on my way home from work in Mumbai. Somehow it just seemed to work even when you threw cows, people, rickshaws, beggars and dogs into the mix I rarely, if ever, saw a crash. Come to think of it despite the absolute carnage I didn't actually see a crash......
David the Caveman Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 I adore the free flowing traffic and lax regulations that you get in poorer countries. But the stats speak for themselves - compared with the rest of the world, our roads are about as safe as it gets. There's nothing profoundly wrong about that at all.
Rincewind Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 If there were no traffic lights, as a pedestrian I would never be able to cross the road. It is difficult enough now. Never mind training for a marathon, crossing at traffic lights in a time most 100m runners would be pleased with is a task in itself. Two seconds late at the lights and you have to dodge drivers who are annoyed at losing 30 seconds of their traveling time. Admittedly, at 3am, having to stop at half a dozen set of lights may seem a little daft but unless the traffic light gain common sense as well as drivers the system is the best we have at the moment. Re the cars in that India video. I did not see any E-type Jogs or any model built in the last 40 years. I'm sure it would be a lot different if there were vehicles capable of doing more than 30mph.
Corky Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 Given the amount of people I see going through red lights it wouldn't make much difference.
Reynard Bleu Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 Unfortunately, this relies on all the drivers using commons sense at junctions etc. This is not going to happen is it. Too many drivers are complete twats.
MrSpaM Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 Think the thread should be renamed "Is it time for car crashes in the uk to increse by 1000%?" Seriously who actually thinks this is a good idea?!?
Daggers Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 Seriously who actually thinks this is a good idea?!? Traffic lights should be advisory if you're turning left and switched off during quiet periods - I rarely pay attention to them at night.
Guest MattP Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate We have around the safest roads in the World according to this, if it aint broke dont fix it.
Daggers Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 http://en.wikipedia....ated_death_rate We have around the safest roads in the World according to this, if it aint broke dont fix it. Does it factor in the number of roads where the traffic is at an absolute standstill due to roadworks and inner city gridlock?
Bellend Sebastian Posted 17 May 2012 Posted 17 May 2012 http://en.wikipedia....ated_death_rate We have around the safest roads in the World according to this, if it aint broke dont fix it. I don't know about 'ain't broke'. Less broke, maybe. The best part of 3000 deaths a year strikes me as a lot of people - if that many folk were dying in plane crashes you'd never hear the end of it. What this bloke proposes may or may not be the answer, but I think we should be looking for one
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