Something Good This Way Comes: Jakarta Traffic Light Countdown Timers

I, for one, do care how many seconds lapse before traffic lights change colors. Of course, everyone does; it concerns other things that matter, small or big alike, to us. This post recommends that Pemda Jakarta to install more such gadgets at the city’s busiest crossroads.

I do not find installing a countdown timer in a heavily loaded crossroad a silly idea. On the contrary, I find it brilliant. A countdown traffic light timer, in itself, is a brilliant concept, just like the conventional traffic light, not only from the production viewpoint but also from its utility and functionality.

I have liked it ever since I saw one at Slipi crossroads, a while ago now. That gadget was not the only one in town (though perhaps the first one in the country). Some weeks ago I found another one near Warung Buncit. I remember feeling also happy, almost gratified, when I saw it.

Countdown timers count as one of the very few good things about Jakarta’s terrible traffic. Quite possibly, they are among the very few best things one can find amid the city’s awful traffic. That is why, their installation counts as one of the very few good policies.

Let me count down several more whys I like ‘em countdown timers:

Lastly: they show that there’s one common thing, one certainty about what will happen ahead. This in itself is amazing. Every time a conventional traffic light switches colors, it signifies, controls and even commands that the road-user’s right is about to reverse into responsibility and, vice versa, some responsibility into right.

Through the LCD displays, we are allowed the luxury of knowing with certainty the precise seconds when the reversal is bound to happen. Some degree of certainty and order is a necessary condition, an everlasting element that partly makes peaceful living possible--even among an ignorant majority or a society of criminals.

Secondly: related to my last point above, they are good for the road-users’ psychology (to some people, at least). They help instill positive attitude to them due to their capability of precise assurance.

First of all: they are a reliable and impartial reminder of timing and time itself. No matter who one is, he or she is given the same amount of time to wait or pass down the road. When it comes to driving or riding, good timing is crucial. Sometimes it can differentiate between a living road-user from a dead one.

Motorists, pedestrians and drivers are subjected to the relationship between distance and time. They rely heavily on spatial and temporal reckoning in order to make sense of the changing permanence, of the constantly changing horizon. Down the roads or thoroughfares, they are supposed to be always cautious about this two-dimensional relationship between distance and time. The gadget partly enhances amd restores the sense of time.

Some people, though, must find such gadgets silly. In fact, I have come across some fellow bloggers who detested them. (Forgive my not mentioning names here, as it is never my purpose to inflame or defame.)

If traffic countdown timers are silly, what isn’t then? But at least there is something to be learned here: Even about man-made trivias we can be so different--isn’t that stunning?

Above all, I hope to see more such good things.