Swindon council, which stripped out all its speed cameras in 2009, are testing the new smart traffic lights scheme in which speeding drivers are to be slowed down by the use of traffic lights.
Gwillam Lloyd, the council’s head of highways, said: “What we are going to do is install sensors in the road. Those sensors will monitor the speed of vehicles.
“If a vehicle is speeding then the lights will turn red.”
Councillor Greenhalgh said: “The whole key is to monitor driver behaviour without beating them over the head.
“It may annoy them, but I think eventually people will work out that if they maintain a constant speed at or around the speed limit then actually their journey times will be much shorter because they won’t be getting delayed by traffic lights.”
Councillor Greenhalgh also added “I have been talking about this with my team for about two years. I have seen it in Spain and France and it seems to work really well and couldn’t see why we were not doing it in the UK.”
Will this just frustrate drivers or is it an idea that could help the flow of traffic?
MJP Motoring Solicitors
May, 20, 2011
I think it is more likely to frustrate drivers and if a driver is breaking law then he needs to be confronted rather than make other drivers suffer.