Designing for danger

The priority-based system is designed for danger (unequal rights, conflicting speeds, distracting signals, etc), then traffic officers devise increasingly expensive systems (more of the above, pedestrian countdown, etc)  to mitigate the danger they themselves have cooked up. You can of course design for safety, pace Equality Streets. Somehow, lily-livered politicians have ceded power to unelected officials who lord it over us to our detriment and at our cost. Any old irony?