Perth Traffic Lights Confirm They Have Been Working a ‘Strictly Nine-to-Five’ Contract and Do Not Do Nights
Signals that stay red for empty streets, flash amber at nobody or simply go dark after midnight say they are 'entitled to a life'.
Traffic lights at the top of Tay Street, photographed during office hours, when they are prepared to be seen. Photo: Eirian Evans, “Traffic lights at the top of Tay Street”, via Wikimedia Commons (geograph.org.uk), CC BY-SA 2.0
PERTH — Perth’s traffic lights have finally explained why so many of them seem to stop working properly after dark, revealing that they were only ever employed on what one signal described as “a strictly nine-to-five arrangement, with a long lunch.”
“People see us on red at two in the morning with not a car in sight and think we’re broken,” said a set of lights on a busy junction, speaking on condition of anonymity because it “has to work here.” “We’re not broken. We’re off duty. When you’ve been changing colour for strangers all day, sometimes you just want to sit on red and think about your life.”
Late-night drivers have long reported lights in the city sitting stubbornly on red for empty roads, cycling through a full pedestrian phase for no pedestrians, flashing amber at nobody in particular, or simply going dark. Perth motorists have also complained in the past about crossings that stop traffic whether anyone is crossing or not, and about sequences at Bridgend that were promised a quick reprogramme which never quite arrived.
The council’s own fault-reporting page lists “traffic lights or pedestrian crossing out of order” between potholes and “fallen trees”, a position the lights describe as “about right, emotionally.”
Taxi drivers, who see more of Perth after midnight than anyone, are not impressed. “I sat at a red for four minutes at half one last week,” said one. “There was nothing coming. Not a car, not a cat. Just me and the light, staring at each other. In the end I think it fell asleep. It went amber, sort of sighed, and then went off altogether.”
Insiders say the council has considered several fixes, including night-time sensors, a full review of signal timings, and a laminated sign reading “Please Be Patient, The Lights Are Tired.” Temporary roadwork signals across the city are already, in some cases, operated by hand “between 7am and 7pm,” which the permanent lights regard as “a clear precedent.”
A council spokesperson said faults could be reported online or, in an emergency, by phone, and that each one would be “investigated in due course,” a phrase understood to mean “during office hours.”
At press time, a set of lights on Dunkeld Road had been seen flashing all three colours at once at 3am, which experts said was either a serious electrical fault or “the most Perth thing ever to happen on a Saturday night.”
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