Stop Here on Red

I have long been fascinated by traffic signals. Until I was about twelve or thirteen I used ot think that little people lived inside the lights and waited until a lane had lots of cars lined up, and then radioed to his little friends that he was going green. It seemed really logical to me at the time. Today I'm still baffled at how traffic lights regulate our driving pattern. Every morning when I merge onto 26 from Sylvan, I am joined by many other cars as we inch and crawl our way to the light. And then we wait anxiously, some of us more than others, for the light to turn green and affirm our inclination to go. I really don't beilieve that lights at onramps have helped our traffic flow all that much, and don't even get me started on "traffic calming humps" in Beaverton.

I often blow straight through those red lights when merging if nobody is around b/c I think they are pretty ridiculous. What if our signals were switched and Red meant go, Green was stop. I wonder which came first, the red light green light game or traffic signals.