Stop, I Say

If you live in London, you may have noticed that our Traffic Bosses, whose motto is ‘The only safe vehicle is a stopped vehicle’, have instituted a new regime at many of the traffic-light-controlled intersections in our fair city.

To wit; when the light turns from green to yellow to red for traffic going in one direction, the light controlling the cross direction also remains red for some time. I would guess for 3 or 4 seconds, the lights are red for all traffic. It’s the city’s version of ‘Nobody move!’

One can easily imagine that the reason for this is to prevent anyone who runs through a red light from causing mayhem.

A good friend of mine, a person of high moral standards, is deeply offended by this. She sees it as yet another example of society stooping to accommodate law-breakers. She would, I think, prefer to see red-light-runners dragged from their cars and hounded through the street, being pelted by over-ripe fruit and rocks.

I understand that sentiment, and share it to some degree, but I am a prisoner of my own training, and so am led to point out a presumably unintended consequence. Once the kind of person who is inclined to run red lights figures out that this new regime reigns at our controlled intersections, the fact that it gives them an extra 3 or 4 seconds during which they can safely run a red light means we are going to see more, not less, red-light-running. Humans are immensely adaptable, a fact which bureaucrats of all stripes seem incapable of appreciating.

I admit this situation will be temporary, as it is evident to me that the ultimate goal of our city’s traffic-engineering department is to have every intersection in London become either a four-way stop or controlled by traffic lights with automated red light cameras.

Traffic Engineering Heaven, that will be.