Brassed off

Today I was timing the traffic lights in Braunton (near Barnstaple) where I still have plans despite a refusal from Devon Highways to agree a lights-off trial. (The trial is to prove the obvious: that we’re better off under self-control, without lights or priority.) 45 seconds of red time for the main A39, 40 seconds for Caen Rd to/from Croyde. There is no pedestrian phase – as the lights change against one priority stream of traffic, they change for the other. Once, I was crossing the junction on foot as the lights changed. (I didn’t run. Why should I? I have just as much right to the road space – or I should have.) In doing so, I delayed a Mercedes, first in line, by maybe two seconds. As I reached safety and he set off, he sounded his horn which echoed incongruously around the village, prompting a middle finger from me. But of course when I thought about it, I blamed the driver far less than a system which turns Jekylls into Hydes.