France has been experimenting with speeding up traffic and making pedestrians safer by removing many of its traffic lights, which might at first seem to have the opposite effect. It turns out that intersections with lights are the scene of most city traffic accidents.
It’s not the end for traffic lights; just a thinning of the herd to the most needed. Already tested in Bordeaux and Toulouse as well as more rural areas, the experiment will soon be tried in Paris as well.
The city will try a scheme where streets would make more use of yield signs, 30kph zones, roundabouts and enforcing priorité à droite, giving way to traffic coming from the right.
In Bordeaux, the city has improved safety at pedestrian crossings by putting in central islands or putting them on a section of road raised to pavement level to show drivers they are entering a pedestrian zone and must slow down.
Removal of the lights is expected to reduce tailbacks from intersections and allow traffic a more natural flow, while the lights attempt to predict, often unsuccessfully, which direction needs the most time.
