Dear Editor,

We have had new traffic lights installed over four months. I dare anyone to say that they are not a nuisance.

I do not wish to be anti-scientific and say “let us do away with them”. They have, though, brought very little comfort to motorists who have chosen now to use the narrow back streets of central Georgetown and Campbellville as new thoroughfares instead of facing the new traffic lights. At three in the afternoon no person wants to sit in a hot motor car or bus to wait for a light change ninety seconds later at Camp and Lamaha Streets.

Mr Traffic Chief, the final regulation of these lights is your preserve, to maintain order on our roadways and efficient traffic movement. We do not need four-way movement along Sheriff Street.

Sir, the only right turn from Sheriff Street needed should be at Garnett Street, going west. The lights at both the junctions of Ogle and embankment and UG/Turkeyen Road and embankment are more a nuisance than serve any true purpose.

A traffic rank can allow one car to turn across the traffic which a light cannot. So we sit in our cars at Croal and Cummings streets, there is no movement of traffic along the main thoroughfares because there is an unnecessary turning signal on exclusively.

These are but few examples of the brainlessness the lights have introduced on the roadway in general. If you think I am counter progressive, why were they turned off during the Commonwealth Finance Ministers conference along Sheriff Street, Carifesta and Mandela Avenues. And how much better did the traffic breathe.

We need a review of the functioning of these lights now. In many cases they are not needed beyond 9 am in the morning.

Yours faithfully,

Ralph Benjamin