Not just me

I joined Cezary Bednarski, nominee, at the British Home Awards last night. Sat next to Deborah Pullen of the MBE KTN (Modern Built Environment Knowledge Transfer Network). She was spot on regarding traffic lights, e.g. the pointless waiting, stopping and re-starting. She mentioned lights at the A1/M25 which cause huge hold-ups except when they are out of action and she sails through without incident or delay. I've seen that same signal-infested roundabout (and others) cause tailbacks beyond the slip-roads for miles up and down the motorway. In today's Guardian there is an item about Derek Turner, operations director at the Highways Agency (lampooned in the long version of In Your Car No-one Can Hear You Scream! [Google finds it]). Why are the defects in the system obvious to us, but not to the highly-paid experts who run it? Vested interests? Currently I'm drafting a pitch for a lights-off trial. One of the sponsors of last night's event was Velux. Its founder, Villum Kann Rasmussen, was quoted thus: "One experiment is worth a thousand experts."