From the Wolverhampton Echo, January 1928.

Dear Sir,
I note the installation of an automatic traffic control
light in Wolverhampton replacing the constable who previously used to
direct the traffic. Such an attempt to save money by dispensing with
traffic police is a retrograde step that can only slow down traffic,
rather than improve the flow. I now find myself waiting for nearly
30 seconds when the cross road is clear. A real policeman would wave me
through rather than leave me to observe what is really just a technical
piece of legislation. It can do no good at all. It just stops traffic
and cannot detect drunk drivers, or those driving dangerously, unlike
a real policeman. We should rip out these monstrosities and return
to proper traffic policing with proper traffic police.

Yours faithfully,
Mr P. Smythe

SafeStop - the campaign against automated traffic control.

1927 saw the introduction of the traffic light. It can't be long before the first complaint about cyclists jumping red lights appeared, or the first fine. Carry this forward to today and red light jumping is endemic in certain big cities, despite the authorities attempts to clamp down on it.

But is it really so bad? Given the rhetoric of the anti RLJ brigade, one would have to believe that a cyclist who fails to stop at red has a death wish. Yet the statistics don't add up. If, as is claimed, there are several hundred thousand cyclists on London's roads every day, and most of them jump red lights, that must be several million offences every day, or a billion a year. At £30 per offence, the national debt could be wiped out at a stroke, just by fining all the red light jumps.