Changing lightbulbs

[Martin Cassini]

Clever article by Michael Blastland about spurious journalistic use of numbers here. Some good comments too. The author cites traffic lights in disdain at Prof Mackay's loose use of the word 'huge', when in fact the CO2 savings from changing traffic lightbulbs to LEDs would be negligible (how many engineers would it take to change them anyway?). Having witnessed efficient flow and civilised interaction between all road-users at junctions when signals are out of service, I maintain that most traffic lights per se are a waste of space. The electricity alone that's required to power them produces 57,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. Add the manufacturing, delivery, installation and maintenance costs, and the needless delay they cause; bear in mind that 27% of our CO2 comes from transport (more numbers), and that 40% of vehicle delays are attributed to flow interruptions caused by signals, and it's clear that policymakers and traffic engineers are involved in damage on a serious scale. Also that the savings from removing signals and letting people use commonsense to do what is natural, efficient and intrinsically safe - approach junctions carefully and filter in turn - would bring serious reductions in CO2 output.