A tale of one traffic light

Once upon a time there was a happy little traffic light and it was a good little traffic light - it would turn red and then a minute later it would turn green and then a minute later it would change back. The little traffic light enjoyed changing colour and knew it was doing an important job. But people didn't seem to like the little traffic light and would call it hurtful names. This made the little traffic light sad.

The little traffic light didn't know why people would say hurtful things about it, but we do don't we boys and girls. Because the little traffic light was set up at the end of Discovery Road on the Worcester Road and when it was red the traffic along this road would start to back up all the way to the island. And when the traffic got this far it would stop people using the island even those who didn't want to go in the direction of the little traffic light and then the traffic would back up all the way to Gilgal and the left-hand lane would become one big queue of traffic.

With the left-hand lane of Gilgal stopped this meant that traffic from Vale Road couldn't get into it; even that traffic who wanted to use the other lane and so traffic would back up Minster Road and also block the right-hand lane of Vale Road.

Oh dear with the right-hand lane of Vale Road blocked traffic from High Street can't get in and that stops all that traffic even the ones that want to use the other two lanes of Vale Road. And with the High Street blocked this stops traffic from Lombard Street, Lickhill Road and Bridge Street getting out. This queue goes all the way back to Bridge Street and then all the way back to Dunley Road.

And this is why people are saying nasty things about the little traffic light because that one minute delay has caused a two-mile tailback of traffic that takes over half an hour to move through.

But it's not really the little traffic light's fault it's the fault of the people who said it could be put there; because they really don't have a clue how it would affect traffic through this town.

So save your name-calling for them and don't blame the little traffic light.

The End