The ever-fertile mind of Max Atkinson points out an easy way to avoid wasting fuel and make life better, namely allowing UK cars to turn left at red traffic lights if the road is clear.

Traffic norms in different countries take on a life quite independent of common sense. In Moscow in the early 1990s every possible traffic law was being flouted all the time as tend of thousands of private cars poured into the city for the first time ever on this scale.

Not quite every traffic law. Two exceptions.

Flicking on car headlights when going through a tunnel or even an underpass: dutifully done by everyone.

And waiting patiently by the side of the road for the traffic police to come if cars were involved in a collision, the drivers concerned deliberately not moving their damaged vehicles an inch to help clear the road so that in due course the cause of the collision might better be assessed. The effect of this of course was to jam the roads for no significant policy of practical reason at all.

And what about the USA’s nervous aversion to roundabouts?

Yes did a song about that: