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Thursday, August 26, 2010

Thinking about Traffic Lights

As I sit here in the Singapore Airlines' Business Class lounge on my way back to Houston from Jakarta, I recall a John Stossel show from a month or so ago questioning the need for traffic lights. The reason this came to mind is that I just spent two weeks in Indonesia where traffic lights are the exception and not the rule.

Now as Mr. Stossel says its seems self evident that traffic lights are needed to keep us from all running into each other and help control the flow of traffic at intersections. But I just spent two weeks in an environment of very heavy traffic with millions of motorcycles careening around among cars, trucks and buses all without traffic lights at most intersections. So you might ask how does this all work without an accident every two minutes.

In an amazing demonstration of the free market and people rising to fill a needed niche, the reason it works is that at every intersection where there is significant traffic interaction volunteer civilians - i.e. local people - become self appointed traffic control officers. They stand in the middle of the intersections with their whistles at the ready and ensure that traffic moves and that everyone has a fair shot at making it through. Now these are unpaid positions but the drivers give them tips as they roll through so helping with traffic control is a paying profession.

At intersections where there is not enough traffic (and consequent tips) to justify a volunteer TCO, drivers simply slow down and make sure it is safe to proceed and often yield to others so that collisions are avoided. So incredible as it may seem John S's proposition that traffic lights are unnecessary turns out to perfectly valid.

It just makes you think about all the other things that government does for our own good that are unnecessary and/or counter-productive.

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