FAULTY TRAFFIC LIGHTS IN THE UKPERMANENT TRAFFIC LIGHTS IN THE UK
Pollution
If you give some careful thought to the control system of traffic lights generally in the UK, you will have formed the correct opinion that Millions of man hours (coupled with extra pollution) are wasted each year because the lights are not configured for optimum traffic flow.
Generally those responsible are quite unconcerned in practise, with regards to optimum traffic flow, bluntly, as long as they collect their pay cheques and keep their heads down; all is well in their world. No one requires that they make sure that Trafffic lights are optimised to the best standard. The facts speak for themselves I venture to say, before someone protests. We all remember the CONES PROBLEM. That took a Prime Minister to sort it out, which says volumes for those directly responsible. The white van man, the commercial traveller, the police driver, the taxi driver, the Multi Drop driver, all pass through lights very many times a day. If we were to add the time lost due lack of optimisation, it would be gross, even a weeks figure would be considerable, but in a year adding up the loss to the country would be staggering, yet those responsible have the capacity to start a programme of correction at once.
I am sure there is the odd chap who cares but he is a rare fellow, the exception, so we can discount him in this summing up.
I am aware that there some Towns and Cities or areas that set their lights quite well, and go to some lengths to ensure good traffic flow, but they are the very few. The rest are Incompetent and need removing from their well paid positions because of this "Couldn't Care Less Attitude". How long will British Society put up with this situation. The malise is even deeper in temporary Traffic Lights.
TEMPORARY TRAFFIC LIGHTS.
Now all these lights (especially permanent lights) have a sensor fitted, to make them clever, they are NOT supposed to operate just like an egg timer, however this control system needs concerned people to have them correctly set.
For those who are not technically minded, the sensor is a proximity detector, it can be set to see a vehicle approaching a long way away, I have seen some in Wales doing an excellent job, its such a pleasure to find one. I'll try to put this in an easy to understand way.
Imagine the road is clear, no vehicles approaching from any direction, the system knows that no vehicle is in-between the lights.
As you approach the lights, the sensor should see you from some distance, and turn green for you to pass through with little slowing down, apart from safety requirements.
It then allows you a period of time to pass through, allowing for a slowest vehicle, it will then go into stand by mode waiting for another approaching vehicle from either direction. If there is a queue of traffic or at least a few, it will stay in pass mode for that direction for a pre set period of time, when it will switch to the other direction for traffic flow.
When there is a steady stream from both directions, the only real control is time, its when it is not busy that the lights need to be set correctly, so as not to delay traffic, cause frustration, cause pollution, vehicles having to stop will cause extra pollution and waste time.
That’s only a little pollution I can hear some of you say, its quite silly to be so concerned about a little.. Well imagine at any one time in the UK how many vehicles are caused to stop by faulty traffic lights (they are technically faulty) and then think this...
No Snowflake Feels Responsible for an Avalanche.
The combined pollution of all these vehicles will be considerable, just like an Avalanche, and nobody would want to get in the way of one of those.
This responsibility could be a local authority, or contractor, whoever or whatever they would be required to set and operate these temporary traffic lights correctly. The police would also have a natural requirement to ensure they do operate correctly, if they think they are not doing so, but do they bother, what do you think, It’s a mundane job for the police, can you imaging the leg pulling in the canteen if one of them actually chased a contractor or local authority, Reg Hollis might.
The reasonable truth is that by reducing frustration a life can be saved, that’s not mundane.
How many are set correctly, how may times have YOU sat alone behind lights which are technically faulty, wondering if you should drive through on red. All because the egg timer section is the only control operational, they don’t even bother to set the sensor, if it works, why, because they don’t have to, as they get their pay cheque at the end of each month and no one kicks their bums or requires then to do their job correctly. The official responsible would be quite well paid, don’t blame the workman on location, he may like to set it correctly, he may have reported the fault, but no one bothers. The responsibility is with the management, which ever way you look at this, there is no dodging this responsibility,,, the management is not bothered, guess why.
If you do sit there waiting for a green light in zero traffic flow, then decide to drive through these faulty lights on red, a nice policeman might charge you with a road offence. Technically the lights are faulty, if the lights are faulty then technically you should not be charged, well you could, but the policeman would have an egg timer case, Whoops,, I mean egg on his face provided you told him the lights were faulty and he still proceeded. You would then have to show that the lights were faulty, which may not be easy in practise, as there would be a vested interest in saying they were in correct working order.
Why is this happening, simple! Those in charge couldn’t care less, they get their pay cheques every month, and no one requires them to perform correctly.
I estimate that 97 out of a 100 of all temp lights in the UK are faulty, and 70 out of a 100 of fixed traffic Lights are technically faulty, not adjusted correctly which means they are faulty, this is through poor or bad configuration, or none functional sensors, or the control systems they supply, and those charged with their responsibility couldn’t care less, why? Yep you guessed! Because no one requires them to perform correctly.
I am aware that the odd city or area sets its lights well, and go to great lengths to ensure good traffic flow, but they are the few.
The rest couldn’t care less because no one requires them to perform correctly.
Government officials, local authority Officials, Contract managers, Police Officers, all travel in a car/vehicle,they all know that these lights are not functioning correctly, what do they do...... NOTHING"
note. The figures arrived at above are estimated from common observation, it is not a scientific conclusion, such properly arrived at figures would in practice be near impossible. My apologies to any official, police officer that has tried to represent this problem and had his/her efforts left on that manager’s great table of administration.
