Recently I’ve come across Equality Streets, a website devoted to the assumption that motorists and pedestrians don’t need to be told when they should proceed at junctions.

According to Martin Cassini, over 20,000 humans are killed or hurt on our roads every year – many of them children – from that he asserts that the current system could hardly claim to be a success.

We complain about the traffic and blame other drivers, but could the real problem be the system itself?

Traffic lights take our eyes off the road, a recipe for danger. They make us stop when we could go, a recipe for rage. They cost the earth to install and run.

What happens when lights are out of action and we are free to use our own judgement? We approach carefully and filter sociably. As courtesy thrives, congestion dissolves.

A system based on equality removes the “need” for most traffic control, and the need for speed, allowing all road-users to use commonsense and common courtesy to filter more or less in turn, and merge in harmony.

Seems like a sensible proposition to me.