City of Lights – Reprise

The two new sets of lights in the City Centre are now active, and guess what? Yes, I was caught by one of them on my way to work this morning (in which time no traffic emerged from the “green” direction, until the one car that approached triggered the change to green for my direction). In fact, out of 22 sets I was caught by 11 of the bloody things!
My journey to and from work can basically be split into two roughly 3 mile sections. The “home” side being mostly easy hills (down to work) and traffic light free and the “work” side being mainly flat and saturated with traffic lights, 10 of them in the last mile. They can add up to 10 minutes to my journey because they’re so badly organised. I sometimes wonder why I bother stopping at them but the reasons are twofold: (1) also being a driver I like to follow the Highway Code and (2) I like to stay alive!
Also, while I’m thinking about it: “CYCLISTS DISMOUNT”. What the hell is that supposed to be in aid of? It’s a sign I’ve seen on many of the aforementioned “psycho paths” where it’s just too narrow for both cyclists and pedestrians to co-inhabit and just highlights the sheer pointlessness of them. I mean, would you expect to get out of a car to push it across a narrow bridge? Well why do they insist cyclists do so? I’ll just stick to the safer roads thank you very much.