Green light for lower carbon emissions

MIGHT I suggest to Environment Minister John Gormely that proper phasing of traffic lights would go quite a way to achieving our carbon emissions targets.

The most fuel-expensive part of driving is achieving motion. There are urban stretches in Cork and Dublin where, if you catch one light, you get them all — and that at off-peak times when they could be switched off with safety.

The philosophy — if I might use so abused a word — behind roundabouts is to maintain traffic flow. Why put lights on them? To do so is an admission that drivers are incapable of using them properly (Mind you, even our new rules of the road are not in accord with international practice in this matter). There are roundabouts in Cork where a driver making a right turn is going to be stopped three times by these lights.

Cal Hyland

4 Closheen Lane

Rosscarbery

Co Cork