Synchronise traffic lights to get us out of jam

MY CAR has a function which shows that my fuel consumption increases by about 50 percent when I am forced to creep in a traffic jam. I presume that this would be the same with most cars, so I shudder to think how much more expensive fuel gets blown into the air during the twice-daily rush hour.

The obvious long-term solution would be to have reliable public transport coupled with park-and-ride facilities, but this would take much time and many resources to introduce. The short fix would be to synchronise the timing of traffic lights on major throughways.

An example of this is Grosvenor Road in Bryanston. In the evenings, the traffic backs up for almost a kilometre which can take over 20 minutes to travel, mainly because of the traffic lights at Crawford Road, just beyond the bridge across the N1.

The majority of cars travel straight across the intersection towards Fourways, but the timing is so short only a few cars can get across at a time.

Lengthening the timing of traffic lights to accommodate the main traffic flow would go a long way towards reducing some of the traffic jams and would thus save the motorists not only valuable time, but a lot of expensive fuel.

Our money-grabbing government does not seem to care about this as they get R4.30 from every litre of fuel, even if it is blown away. Through Sanral, they are trying to get even more from the e-tolls for the so-called freeway improvements, but nothing has been done to improve traffic flows to and from these freeways.

Sure, these access roads fall under the municipalities, but is it too much to ask for some form of subsidy to assist in improving overall traffic flows? This would be a justified move because most of our fuel is imported and thus must be a large drain on our foreign exchange.

But, there is always the R4.30 tax income into the trough to consider!

I would appeal to our newly elected DA council to set the example by doing something effective like starting with the timing of traffic lights. This will earn them the gratitude of many motorists as well as many more votes come the next elections. Les Crusoe