Or especially at 2 in morning when the side road only goes into a
supermarket.

Perhaps councils and the like should be forced to put in intelligent
lights that have sensors (and ones that work!) rather than going for
the cheap and cheerful fixed phase option. By all means operate fixed
timing in peak periods (and the sensor can automatically detect when
this is) but having to wait any time at all during the night is stupid.
It encourages people to jump, with potentially disasterous results if
there are any people wandering about (quite possibly drunk or not quite
with it).

I also cannot understand why we don't have all lights set on red at
night (would be stupid in peak periods). When a car approaches, the
appropriate road changes to green. This means there's not even a delay
as the other side goes back to red (usually the primary road) and
pedestrians don't need to wait if they get there first either.

Sweden has always had this (well, at least since I was a kid - and I'm
31), and Denmark have the countdown timer on lights. They've also used
LED traffic lights for ages, even though I remember the Highways Agency
going on about how good they were a few years ago - and still today we
have virtually none in operation (often a secondary light at a junction
or roundabout). Illuminated cats eyes have also never taken off, even
though the ones near Nazeing, Essex are fantastic (but clearly
expensive) and must be a major boost to road safety at night on country
roads.

The good old UK likes to lag behind, and then we claim to be the first
because our new system is slightly improved/different (one extra LED in
the light means we're first to have lights with 301 diodes instead of
300).

Next time Tesco build a new store, or a new retail park opens, I bet
any road junction built gets cheap and annoying lights that will
continue to hold you up at 2am. If you're really 'lucky', they'll even
bung in a Red Light camera to make some money from those who don't want
to wait!

Jonathan