Green? no not the wearin' of

[nachoman]

Gee, sumpter, you sound like me! Personally, I think smaller intersections should become four-way stops after a certain hour. Or perhaps the smaller street could flash red and the larger street flash yellow. I am convinced that some cities intentionally time lights to stop people. This for several reasons:

1) If you get people to stop while driving through smaller towns, it forces people to look out the side window and see what places to shop at
2) If people get stopped all the time, it discourages people using smaller streets as shortcuts, and slows traffic down.
3) Some smaller suburbs around here have red light cameras to catch red light runners. It is a revenue-generator (admittedly so by our former governor!). If they time the lights so that they are always turning yellow right in front of you, perhaps they can catch more red light runners and boost their revenue.

Either way, you are exactly right. If cities and towns put an effort into properly timing their traffic lights, or making them simple stop signs during the night hours, a lot of gas and energy could be saved.