At a route I used to use often in my car, crossing the Thames from Castlenau to Hammersmith on Hammersmith Bridge, the lanes were changed onto the bridge, meaning that 2 lanes at the lights reduced to 2 immediately ahead.
For a while left and right lanes merging to one were fought over with anger and hand waving and push and shove.
A year later, right hand lane went first, then left, then right and so on - an orderly merging that subverted all the anger and jostling. I go to a car boot on the A3 sometimes where the exit is a nightmare. For a few months it was push and shove. Now, at each and every lane merge on the way out it is left/ right/left/right in turn.
Human beings are perfectly capable of organising themselves without the imposition of rules from on high. The people who cause the trouble take no notice of the rules anyway.
While you need lights at certain places like narrow bridges, at most junctions people sort themselves out perfectly well. Likewise, if you establish that a stretch of highway is shared, few motorists will wish to threaten pedestrians. Those who do will not be constrained by the rules anyway.
I have a strong feeling that the populace can organise themselves much better than idiot traffic lights with their inflexible timings whatever the traffic conditions.
Unfortunately, we are committed to the nanny state and the idea that we have to have order imposed by some 'authority'. I'm 66 years old, enough to have learned from experience that the man from ministry does not always know best.
