(~6 minutes to read)
It seems like I spend a lot of time loitering beneath a red light.
I don’t mean the kind that serves as a sign that carnal pleasures are to be had in exchange for coin of the realm. If I did, I’d spend even more time beneath red lights than I currently do, while making less money than I do from writing.
No, I’m referring to red traffic lights. They and I are like opposite poles of a magnet—we’re irresistibly attracted to each other. It doesn’t matter how recently the lights had changed to green—the red light will ignore its computer-controlled schedule and do its darndest to reassert itself on the gantry in time for me to stand my car up on its front bumper in an effort to stop and avoid a ticket.
It doesn’t matter what time of time of day or night I’m out driving. I can come home on a deserted highway into town at two in the morning and almost guarantee to get caught at several of the lights. I’m convinced that they sense me coming.
And it’s not like there’s any traffic at the lights waiting to cross the highway; they change to red purely out of spite. I can feel the malevolence emanating from the overhead gantry. The cowling around the light seems to narrow, and I sometimes catch an evil glint in the lens of the red light.
Experimentation has proved to me beyond any shadow of a doubt that it’s me personally that’s the target of their vendetta. Mrs. H can drive my car with impunity. The contrast between us is so great that whenever we drive into BC, I let her drive through the towns in the Okanagan. Residents of and visitors to that part of the world will know that traffic lights breed like rabbits on the main drag through the towns, yet Mrs. H. can drive non-stop (legally!) through Kelowna. Me? Irrespective of what vehicle I’m driving, or what time of day or night, I get caught at just about every set of lights, making it a minimum two-hour drive from town limit to town limit. Sometimes it takes so long that we have to stop for food. On more than one occasion, we’ve looked for a Bed and Breakfast.
Ironically, as a pedestrian, I can be counted upon to catch the white walking man at almost every controlled intersection I encounter. What does this mean? Well, for a start it means I can probably walk through Kelowna quicker than driving. But as to the cause; is it that a white walking man in my favour occurs when the street I’m crossing is on a red light and the lights are fooled by me being on foot? Or is it Mother Nature trying to tell me that I should abandon the use of the noisy, smelly automobile and become a full time pedestrian?
In the interests of fairness and of including some positivity to this piece, I must state here and now that level crossings appear not to bear me the same grudge that regular traffic lights do. Which is just as well, given the length of some of trains that pass through the three crossings within our town’s limits and the two just outside.
When I first looked at my home town as a potential place to move to when we emigrated, there was only one traffic light in town. By the time we moved here in June 1994, they’d doubled. That alone should have made me see the writing on the wall. I’ve lost count of how many sets of lights we have now—I can think of nineteen or twenty. That’s only a little shy of an average of one new set per year. And more are planned.
In some places, traffic lights are or were switched over to “emergency” red and amber flashing overnight. This is a thoroughly civilized arrangement; the intersection is controlled but doesn’t impose extra travel time on red light magnets like me. And in many of the more enlightened countries, roundabouts are used to assign priority to traffic using the intersection. The roundabout need not be a huge, grassy, flower-bedecked island—four-foot-diameter zits in the middle of the intersection do the same job. Roundabouts must be cheaper to install than lights, and they must make more sense ecologically and economically from a maintenance and repair perspective; there’s no cabling to lay, no light gantries to erect, no control computers to fix and no light bulbs to replace. And the best thing about them is that they keep traffic flowing in both on- and off-peak periods.
Several times a year, I drive to Medicine Hat (a city about three hours south-east of here.) About two thirds of the journey is on the TransCanada Highway; most of the rest is secondary highways. I have a total of eight sets of lights and three level crossings to negotiate on that journey, and 263 blissful, traffic light-free kilometres; I love it! I enjoy driving into Saskatchewan for the same reason.
Yes, living outside of metropolises (metropoli?) has much to commend it, not the least of which is the miles and miles of traffic light-free driving. Unfortunately, there’s a different hazard in such surroundings. I speak of Frank McGilligan and his propensity for ignoring the stop sign at intersections. One has to be aware that he always crosses the highway at that intersection at 11:13hrs every Thursday; and he doesn’t stop. If one isn’t armed with that local information, one is sure to get t-boned by Frank at 11:13hrs one Thursday. And what’s more, as the stranger in the area, it’ll be your fault; there will have been numerous witnesses to the accident, including the local Mountie and the mayor or reeve of the nearest municipality.
Every rural community has its Frank McGilligan. He (or she) may not be named Frank McGilligan, and it might not be 11:13hrs on Thursdays, but the principle holds good everywhere.
But back to traffic lights and their vendetta against me. I’ve discovered that it’s global. It’s happened to me in Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Belgium, and Spain. How do they detect me? Which sense are they using? I’ve tried wearing a face mask. I’ve tried driving my hatchback, a sedan, a van, a pickup; even a U-Haul cube van. I’ve drenched myself in Chanel no. 5 in attempt to fool the lights’ olfactory organs. What more can I do?
My kids reckon it’s because I keep to the speed limit (mostly) that I get caught at so many lights. They believe the lights are set up to assume that everyone drives at 10km/hr over the limit. Yet if I drive over the speed limit, I know I’ll get pulled over by the cops. “Officer; I know you won’t believe me, but the reason I was speeding was the traffic lights. They’re out to get me; I know they are! The only way I can get them to leave me alone is to drive at ten kilometres an hour over the limit, like 87% of the rest of the traffic on the road.”
Yeah—that one would be doing the rounds in Kops’ Korner at the local Tim Hortons before I get home.
Wait: I wonder if that 87% statistic is a true number that I inadvertently chose at random. That would mean that I’m normally part of the 13% who keep to the limit. Thirteen… unlucky… hmmm…
Maybe if I drive with a lucky black cat on my lap?