Let's try switching off Salisbury's traffic lights

TRAFFIC lights. Are they a boon or a ****** nuisance? Answers on an email, please.

Here’s my answer.  I believe they are often counter-productive and Salisbury might be better off without almost all of them.

I would like to suggest that  the highway authorities switch them all off for a trial period of two weeks, to give drivers time to get used to the change and alter their behaviour accordingly.

Then I’d like to see an assessment of the effect on traffic flow, which I suspect would be improved.

If it doesn’t work, by all means switch them on again.

If it does, just think of those plummeting energy bills.

It’ll make the savings from switching off a few street lamps at night look like small change.

And if the effect is that fewer vehicles end up filling our air with exhaust fumes while they wait for the lights to change when there’s nobody coming the other way, then that has to be a bonus.

I fell into conversation about this with an acquaintance at a car boot sale not long ago and found him in complete agreement. As was the lady whose stall we were standing by. We were soon discussing which were the most annoying and pointless sets of lights, and I imagine everyone has their own particular bête noire.

My personal favourites  for extinction are the ones as you come in to town down Fisherton Street. They take forever to change and cause pointless delays.

As do the ones at the junction of New Street and Exeter Street, holding up traffic trying to get out of the multi-storey car park and out of town.

Certainly, whenever the lights at the Harnham gyratory are out of action I get round there a lot faster.

You’d have to leave the special lights for the park and ride buses on, I suppose, to avoid slowing them down.

I’m not saying yet that we should banish the rest for ever. Just give it a try. What have we got to lose?