Traffic lights in Walsall

If any of you have ever driven through Walsall, you will know what a nightmare it is.

Walsall Council seems to have an unhealthy obsessions with traffic lights - the most absurd stretch is between the Arboretum crossroads and Junction 10 of the M6, where you drive through 13 sets of traffic lights along a stretch of road approximately 2000 metres long, making an average of a set of lights every 153 metres.

Is that really necessary? Does that amount of traffic lights promote free flowing traffic? I think not.

Whatsmore, the lights are frequently set in such a way that you get stopped at every single one of them - this is no good for your car, and means more pollution from cars stopping and then having to accelerate back up to speed.

This stop-start driving through Walsall also creates a further problem - you get a 'bunching' affect on traffic whereby you'll get a rush of around 40 or 50 cars coming along a stretch of road almost bumper-to-bumper, and  then the road will be empty until the next 'bunch' of cars come along. This isn't using the road network to it's capacity, it's artificially creating queues and traffic.

Give me roundabouts any day!