Confusion over traffic lights raises many questions

The inability of many adults to understand the sequential operation of traffic lights leaves me wondering.

Traffic lights, or rather in this
 instance, a traffic clock,
 should be a welcome
 intrusion to our lives.

Those same people are, I assume, literate and numerate, intelligent and allowed to vote for our government, and so are intimately involved with our civil society.
However, despite their engagement with society, an everyday occurrence, such as the fundamentals of traffic lights, seems to escape their capacities.
Some would argue that such matters are trivial and so in the greater scheme of things unimportant; I see it differently.
Each of us, whether we like it or not, has a responsibility to have an understanding of society’s infrastructure and although dealing with traffic lights might appear near the bottom of the hierarchy, having a grasp of their operation reflects a person’s mindful role in their community.
Our communities urgently need thoughtful people who care about what it is that underpins our society and an aware appreciation of something that appears as basic as traffic lights suggests that same person would have an intelligent opinion about more abstract matters such as equality, fairness, justice and decency.
Traffic lights are relatively simple things, but they introduce us to complex human traits such as respect and giving the other person a fair go and, critically, patience; something on which all the good things in life hinge.
Looked at from afar, a traffic light is just that, but looked at somewhat more closely it becomes something of a metaphor, at least for the modern life it symbolises.
Traffic lights are about control and within that offer us a structure for living in an ordered manner, ensuring that we cause no harm to others, or ourselves.
Obedience is prominent in the proper use of traffic lights and considered in that metaphorical sense decent societal behaviour is about doing no harm, something of which all of us are guilty just by being alive and living in modern society.
However, it is dangerous to deconstruct life so much and instead we should see traffic lights as a pointer urging respect, patience, sharing and, beyond that, a red light should be a welcome intrusion, demanding we slow down.
(April 13, 2011)