TRAFFIC LIGHTS

Traffic lights

As I was sitting in my vehicle earlier this week, I found myself incredibly annoyed. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why traffic lights so close together, are not coordinated better. I make it through one light only to be stopped immediately at the next light. More often than not, traffic gets backed up and the vehicles coming from the sides cannot even make it through their lights because we're backed up. I'm not exactly sure why traffic lights are designed this way but it would seem to me that a great amount of hassle and road rage could be avoided if traffic lights were simply thought about more carefully. I know that they have engineers who design intersections, traffic lights and all of that fun stuff. And sure, these engineers have a lot more schooling than I do, but why do I seem to be a bit more concerned about this issue than they do?

Traffic lights in my hometown seem to cause more grief and chaos than fighting over parking spots at Christmas time. We have terrible traffic patterns which I also credit the engineers for, and it can take forever to get a mere few blocks. I live only 8 miles from my office and on some days, it can take almost 30 minutes to get to or from work. The traffic lights change and no one moves. People sit there, impatiently, honking their horns at each other. I find myself being fascinated by the honking fools who seem to think that by blowing their horns at the other motionless vehicles, it will somehow make everyone miraculously move. As if people are sitting there just not wanting to move until they hear someone honking their horn and suddenly they realize - hey, I should be moving! Let me enlighten all of the honking individuals out there - your horns aren't doing anything more than annoying the rest of the individuals who are sitting there as well. Lay off of the horns, don't make anything worse than it already is. Someday, you might end up honking your horns at the wrong people and not like the outcome. Trust me, I've seen it.

And so, I find myself back to asking the theoretical question of how we can change this madness? Why can't traffic lights be more coordinated? Is it really that difficult to make traffic lights a bit more reasonable? I have gone out of my way to try to find routes to and from work that don't have as many traffic lights to contend with daily. Until someone finally puts their heads together and realizes that people are really tired of traffic lights causing so much chaos, I will continue to be just as frustrated as the next person.