| Last week I was sitting in my car waiting to turn left at a red light. There was nothing unusual about this. Not just for me but anyone else who lives in our urban environment. While waiting for the light to turn green --- and at this set of lights, its a looong wait --- there was little traffic from my right.
The bloke ahead of me took a gamble and ran the red. The gamble was not so much he could cause an accident, but he ran the risk of attracting a flashing blue light. His luck was in and he completed the turn with no risk of causing an accident and no blue lights in sight.
 Now, we are not advocating anyone actually copy this behaviour. It was, under current laws, an illegal turn. What we are advocating is Australian authorities need to investigate laws that enable motorists to legally turn left against a red light at certain intersections.
There is nothing new in this. In the western part of the US they have RTOR (Right Turn on Red) for more than 50 years. RTOR is for countries that drive on the right hand side of the road. In Australia it would be LTOR (Left Turn On Red).
Why should we do this?
In 2005 Australia had 13.2 million vehicles on the road. Since then 3 million more vehicles have been sold in record years for the car industry. In the 1970s, during the fuel crisis, many more American states adopted RTOR, as a means of saving fuel. This is the crux of the matter.
RTOR not only keeps cars moving it gets people to their destinations faster, therefore reducing engine running time. This means not only fuel savings, but less emissions into the atmosphere. The result is cleaner air for us and our children and less harmful emissions that lead to global warming.
To emphasize the point, in Australia in 2002 cars contributed 43 million tonnes of carbon dioxide or equivalent greenhouse gasses. If just a quarter of the 15 million or so cars on Australian roads today saved two minutes a day by being able to turn left against a red light when safe, and after coming to a stop, our traffic flows would not only be smoother, but it would be better for the environment.
Four million cars saving two minutes each is 8 million minutes, or 133,333 hours, or 5555 days, or more than 15 years of running time. We will not even try and estimate the number of tonnes of emissions, but suffice to say we are talking telephone numbers.
In ONE day.
This must be a step in the right direction: not a cure-all but another saving in the complex puzzle of helping our environment deal with our reliance on fossil fuels.
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