Traffic Lights Don’t Need Disruption

At a traffic light, disruption is not conducive.

This is even more true when the traffic light is out and there is no traffic conductor to assist.

The general rule at a broken traffic light in South Africa is to treat it like a four way stop, you yield to whoever was there first, then when it’s your turn, you go.

However, as with stop streets, often the person who wants to appear nice will cause havoc by letting people who arrived after them go first with a hand gesture of: “No, no, you go. I insist, really, you go.”

This disruption to the normal flow, although coming from what appears to be a generous space, is actually totally selfish. It is disruption for the sake of ego, so they can feel good about being generous, when actually they are throwing out the entire flow of traffic, which causes chaos and unnecessary frustrations.

A more positive disruption would be to replace most traffic lights with large turning circles (round abouts) – no electricity required, far more conducive to traffic flow, and totally loadshedding proof.

Beware of disrupting things for the sake of your ego, and make sure you are disrupting the right thing.