Puffin Silly

‘FROM an early age we learn that green means go and red means stop.

”And we call that colour red”

It is a simple correlation that has stood many people driving cars and crossing roads in good stead for years.

But the people of Norwich are, as the Telegraph reports, finding this routine a little too complicated.

The cause of the problem is the city’s new ”puffin” crossings – or ”pedestrian user friendly intelligent crossings”, to give them their full title.

They work pretty much in the usual way: you press the ”button”, wait until the little man changes to green and then, putting one ”foot” in front of the other and taking care to aim at other side of the ”road”, start to ”walk”.

But there is one difference between these new crossings and the old, and it has prompted Norfolk county council to issue would-be road crossers with instructions and leaflets.

The thing is that with the puffins the little green man lights up on the display pad at the pedestrian’s side rather than on the opposite side of the road.

This seems a simple enough concept to grasp on paper and in principle, but to the people of Norwich it has led to them ”coming into conflict” with cars and buses.

Despite the clear Darwinian value of such a ”conflict”, the council is keen to prevent a cull in voter numbers and has now gone further than written advice and detailed a safety officer to put on an open demonstration on how to best cross the road.

Leaving the locals to talk of the good old days and little green men…’

Posted: 8th, February 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink