Are traffic lights a pain in the back?

Human nature is never comfortable with just letting things be. Thus, futility of the advice, 'Let sleeping dogs lie'.

Human nature is never comfortable with just letting things be. Thus, the futility of the advice, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie.’ But just because we are frisky does not mean that it’s right to be restless all the time. Take the latest study on ruptured discs in the lower back area. For sufferers, there were two options: surgery or a descent into irreparable damage. Well, now there’s a third option: do nothing. For people suffering from a slipped disc, nature could, if given the chance, take care of you.

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And it isn’t just in the area of back pain that tiding over things can be the solution. Engineers in Europe have suggested that the best way to avoid road accidents is to remove those very devices that are supposedly there to stop them, namely, road signs and markings and traffic lights. Joining the engineers are psychologists, who argue that traffic signs and lights actually confuse the motorist more than help him to drive safer and better. Data shows that 70 per cent of Americans ignore traffic lights anyway. The mind boggles even at the thought of discovering what those figures might be in Indian cities.

If engineers believe that traffic signals are catalysts to road destruction in relatively civic-minded, rules-abiding Europe, in India traffic signals must be death traps. Cross your heart and hope to smash up your car and say that you haven’t stepped on that accelerator extra hard when confronted with the amber light on its way to turning red at a crossing? But then, as you rightly point out, here, luckily, most of the traffic lights don’t work anyway. Smart thinking ahead from our authorities.