Road traffic control involves directing vehicular and pedestrian traffic around a construction zone, accident or other road disruption, thus ensuring the safety of emergency response teams, construction workers and the general public.
Traffic control also includes the use of CCTV and other means of monitoring traffic by local or State roadways authorities to manage traffic flows and providing advice concerning traffic congestion. This is not dealt with in this article.
Traffic controllers (TC's) are often known as "lollipop men" (usually this name only applies to TC's working near schools to aid pupils in road crossing) from the appearance of their Stop/Slow signs, known as "Stop bats".
Famous quotes containing the words road, traffic and/or control:
“Future contingents cannot be certain to us, because we know them as such. They can be certain only to God whose understanding is in eternity above time. Just as a man going along a road does not see those who come after him; but the man who sees the whole road from a height sees all those who are going along the road at the same time.”
—Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274)
“Poems stirred
into paper coffee-cups, eaten
with petals on rye in the
sun—the cold shadows in back,
and the traffic grinding the
borders of spring ...”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“Imagine believing in the control of inflation by curbing the money supply! That is like deciding to stop your dog fouling the sidewalk by plugging up its rear end. It is highly unlikely to succeed, but if it does it kills the hound.”
—Michael D. Stephens. “On Sinai, There’s No Economics,” New York Times (Nov. 13, 1981)