Keep the traffic flowing

It was raining when I woke up this morning so I drove into work. Luckily, as it's now the summer holidays, there was no school traffic on the roads in the morning. This evening though an accident somewhere else in the town had caused "gridlock" on the roads around the area where I live. I spent most of the drive home in a continuous queue that went all the way home - the ubiquitous traffic jam that plagues our lives.

Not a problem - you can't let it get to you - after all, if you're in the queue then you're one of the culprits too! I like to stick a good sing-a-long CD on and cheer myself up. My favourite album at the moment is Unemployment by the Kaiser Chiefs!

I noticed, as I sang along happily, that an awful lot of petrol was being wasted while people were trying to make a right turn off a main road. Think about it. You're in a queue and in the stream of traffic travelling in the opposite direction, a car wants to make a right turn. But, his/her road is cut off by traffic in the queue that you're in. Behind that car another queue of traffic begins to build up, waiting for the car in front to turn right. Inevitably, this causes more and more queues to spider out across the town.

Of course, you can do your bit to keep the traffic moving. As you crawl along, keep an eye out for left turns from the road you are on. As you come up to a left turn, leave a gap between you and the car in front.

• You'll let oncoming traffic turn right if it wants to.
• Traffic from the left will be able to turn right and join the oncoming traffic.
• If you're polite, you'll be able to let traffic from the left join your queue.

All this helps to keep the traffic flowing through the city, helping people reach their destinations in a timely manner and ultimately reducing the amount of wasted fuel.

Keep moving,
caldini