Red, yellow, green…….go!

On my way home I began to ponder on…wait for it…traffic lights!

Let me explain a little futher. I’ve always had an interest in ‘created order’ in society. The rules and regulations we follow, (e.g. waiting in line, taking a number, driving on the left (or right)) that have become social norms in our societies. At some level I believe most people prefer this order and the rules that come with it, as opposed to a society of chaos where everyone makes up their own rules and social norms.

So, back to traffic lights. Driving through the web of roads in the Auckland CBD I watched as traffic lights elegantly filtered traffic, pushed it between block, at all times ensuring there wasn’t any major blockages caused. As one light goes green it triggers a whole set of changes to ensure a smooth journey. And we were all patiently following the rules, answering to red, amber, green and shunting along each block a little like sheep.

I thought to myself, who has the job, the power to create this logic? What an amazing feat of logic and maths setting up this grid of order must be. It could so easily go wrong and cause the chaos we all seem to dread and avoid. Like when the lights are not working and flash on amber, no one knows quite what to do. Heaven forbid us all having to think for ourselves and rely on the polite ‘letting out’ of cars etc. Instead we bow down to the god-like traffic lights and accept (welll most of us do) it’s commands.

So i did a little research and the people who create this order are apparently called traffic engineers.

Lo and behold, there is even a blog for the traffic engineers to discuss the ins and outs of their job….it lost me at paragraph one unfortunately. But sounds pretty impressive http://trafficengineers.wordpress.com/ 

Anyway, this is my ode to traffic lights and traffic engineers. You lot are pretty damn smart, are in control of our every move at times and could easily cause mass confusion for hundreds if not thousands of people at rush hour if you wanted. So let’s all be nice to traffic engineers if we ever meet one.