Per an experiment whereby they did away with road signs and traffic lights - claiming this made everyone more vigilant... ?
Obviously they never conducted the experiment in a busy town centre on a Saturday afternoon,..
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/search/4 ... _on_roads/Quote:
Power cut sparks chaos on roads
9:00am Monday 19th January 2009
By Paul Keaveny »
A POWER cut which affected 80 homes caused traffic chaos when a set of traffic lights at a major junction failed.
The emergency services were called to a head-on crash at the junction of Crompton Way and Moss Bank Way, Astley Bridge, at about 1pm on Saturday.
It is believed the crash was caused due to the confusion at the lack of traffic lights at the junction.
Traffic came to a standstill as firefighters took a woman out of her Ford Escort car on a spinal board as a precaution.
She was take to the Royal Bolton Hospital with back and neck injuries. Her condition is not thought to be life-threatening.
A couple in the Mercedes car which also involved in the crash were not injured.
Traffic was held up for at least an hour and motorists were forced to navigate the busy junction without the aid of traffic lights for most of the afternoon.
The power cut, at about 12.40pm, was caused by a fault at a junction box under the pavement at the corner of Holland Street and Holly Street, Astley Bridge. Witnesses reported seeing smoke coming from the ground.
A United Utilities spokesman said 50 homes were initially affected by the cut, but a further 30 homes were disconnected at 3.30pm when engineers working on the repairs had to switch the power over.
The power was returned in two stages, with 40 homes back on line at 6pm and the remaining homes switched back on at 7.30pm.
The spokesman said: “We apologise to anyone affected, but the team worked as quickly as possible to restore power supplies.”
One motorist caught up in the afternoon gridlock said: “The traffic lights were down so people were just having to wing it. It was chaos and the traffic was backed up for ages.”
Given that a head on collision had occurred - why did the police not have an officer directing the traffic?
Asked my sisters about this junction.
They say it's one of the busiest in Bolton.. as this is the RING ROAD and there are housing estates.. a park .. an Asda and a DIY store close-by.
I asked about the lay-out. They said that one side has a turn right only - on the way out of Bolton as the cross roads here leads to the notorious A666 to Blackburn .
They say it's quite a tight squeeze in peak hours as folk will be heading to Asda on the one side and the large DIY store on the other side.
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He says it was his first ever job.. He was nervous.. He got his signals mixed and made headlines 
