There is a light that never goes out

Did it ever strike you how much more smoothly traffic flows when the traffic lights are broken? If there’s an absence of tailbacks in normally sticky junctions, that’s generally the explanation. Lights out. Everyone taking care and moving on through, without a hitch. It’s why I’ve always been a supporter of the idea – well, it’s mine actually – that we should have a national traffic light free day. I suspect that the whole country would sail around blissfully free of angst and stress, with nary a hint of road rage in the air. It’s worth an experiment at any rate.
I spent a lot of time sitting at traffic lights the other day. It was a Sunday like any other Sunday. Not a lot of pedestrians around in the suburbs of Dublin. Plenty of cars, though, heading up to, or down from, the mountains. Families visiting their elderly mothers and fathers. The sort of stuff that the roads should be well capable of carrying, without snarl-ups.
But the queues at traffic lights bordered on the absurd. And, all the while, petrol was being consumed uselessly as cars sat waiting for the lights to change. At times, it seemed to take forever.
The way things have been set up, in Dublin at least, there seems to be a mandatory pedestrian crossing stage on every rotation of the traffic lights, at any junction of significance. Which is fine, as long as there are pedestrians to cater for. But far more often than not, what happens is that no one crosses while the pedestrian green is showing – and, if there is a pedestrian within miles, just when the light changes, he or she saunters across hari-kiri style in front of the lead car. It happened today with a woman and a buggy. Luckily, the driver was alert, but by the time the woman had made her sleepy crossing, only two cars got through, while another twenty stalled.
The loss of time and energy involved in having thousands of cars sitting needlessly at lights all over the city – or all over the country for that matter – at any given moment is hugely wasteful. Why allow it to continue?
What’s the alternative? Here’s a couple of easy options. Suppress the pedestrian part of any traffic light sequence unless it is activated by a pedestrian pressing a button. It isn’t rocket science. You arrive at a set of lights and if you want to cross, you press ‘cross’. The pedestrian green then takes its turn in the sequence and you get to cross when it says you can.
Of course, in practice what happens at less busy times of the day is this. A pedestrian arrives at a traffic light. Nothing is coming. He or she danders across the road against the pedestrian red. The logic is obvious: why hang around like a dildo? Get on with it.
Then the pedestrian green happens and no one is around to take advantage of it. In New York, they allow motorists to turn right at red lights, giving the right of way, of course, to pedestrians who are crossing. If they can manage this in New York, where people are known for their abrasiveness and impatience, then we can certainly do the same in Ireland.
Here, people would be allowed to turn left when a light is red, always conceding right of way to pedestrians and proceeding with due care and attention. We need to cultivate a culture of careful driving, and if anything, this would bring that more sharply into focus. Sure, it's not an idea that will appeal to those who want everything set down rigidly and who believe that no trust whatsoever should be placed in the citizenry to behave intelligently. Nor will it appeal to the enemies of the car, who are involved in a campaign to make it as painful as possible to get behind the wheel and go even for a Sunday spin.
But the arguments in favour are real. The cost of people stalling uselessly probably runs into billions every year. There’d be less build-up of tension and stress in cars. And ultimately we’d all get around more efficiently. Plus, there'd almost certainly be a greater level of awareness of the need for safety, among both drivers and pedestrians, as a result.
At the very least, it’s worth a trial run.
I know this might seem like an odd note to strike to conclude, but here it is anyway. Congratulations to Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and the other leading members of Sinn Fein on the fact that they have finally delivered the long hoped-for decommissioning of arms by the IRA. This is genuinely a momentous achievement for the individuals who have worked towards and negotiated for it.
So far the response from the wider community has been muted. And from the DUP, there has been the predictable truculence. Never mind. History will judge those responsible for this massive step forward. What they have achieved is remarkable and hugely to be welcomed. Now let’s get on with building on their
contribution.