LEDGER COLUMNIST
Red light, green light ...

Klonie JORDAN

All I want for Christmas is for the traffic lights in this city to work in some kind of basic vehicle control-andflow system.

I gotta tell ya, I just don't get the traffic lights system. Ours might very well be the only set of red, yellow and green lights in the free world that actually IMPEDE the flow of traffic.

Now I don't mean to be critical, it's just that these lights are really starting to get to me.

I must admit that I am not a genius regarding the synchronization of things, especially things powered by electricity. For example, while attempting to help my wife put up Christmas decorations, I tried to arrange the lights out in the yard to blink in a certain sequence. The little electric bulb candles in the windows were supposed to blink in order and then, after the last one came on, the two lighted-up reindeer were supposed to come on and then they would all go dark and the sequence would start all over again. So, the sequence was supposed to be - candle, candle, candle, candle, candle, regular reindeer, Rudolph, back to the first candle.

But when I tested it, everything worked fine until it got to Rudolph and then, instead of him lighting up as the proverbial beacon in the night for Santa's sleigh, what happened was, well, his big red nose - BANG! - exploded. Just - KA-POW - blew right off his face.

So maybe sequential luminescence is not my cup of tea.

But that's not to say I don't understand the concept. I am a reasonably intelligent kinda guy and I'm pretty sure that whoever invented traffic lights did so with the thought in mind that they would help traffic to move in an efficient and timely manner, thus eliminating congestion and helping us all to maintain healthy blood pressure levels.

I don't know who is responsible for our particular traffic light setup but I wish they would take another look at it and maybe consider some modifications. I mean, there have been times when I've driven through town late at night or early in the morning and every traffic light I came to changed to red right before I got to it. It's uncanny - and a little spooky.

Sometimes I think someone is sitting nearby with some type of laser device and they fire the laser at the lights right before we get to them to make them change color just to mess with us and then sit there and giggle while we bang our steering wheels and slap our dashboards and fuss and fume.

It's just, well, so very annoying. I mean, if it were necessary to have every light in the city turn red right before I get to them - if that somehow serves some kind of cosmic purpose or somehow makes things run smoothly elsewhere - then more power to 'em. Just have somebody explain it to me.

On the other hand, if the lights are just changing colors at random, well, that's pretty, uh, uh, uh, pretty, uh, uh, uh, well, pointless and kind of silly.

Like I said, I'm no traffic light expert. However, I have noticed that some towns have their traffic lights set up to switch to flashing yellow and red during certain low traffic volume hours. This seems to me to make a lot of sense.

I'm just tossing it out there for whatever it's worth.

I'm just, you know, saying.

And now if you'll excuse me, I've got myself an exploding reindeer situation that needs my attention.

Klonie Jordan (editor@gaffneyledger.com) is executive editor of The Gaffney Ledger.