Our campaign to have unnecessary traffic lights switched off continues to gather pace.

A government minister, MPs, leading councillors, traffic experts and TV presenter Noel Edmonds have offered their support.

So have scores of our readers.

Rather than helping traffic to flow, traffic lights are doing the opposite.

And easing this problem would be so straightforward.

All that needs to happen is for some of the lights to be turned off.

It has been done in Portishead and it works like a dream.

Yet at the Bristol urban traffic control centre, Terry Bullock talks of the need to change road layouts and markings. He says traffic lights cannot simply be switched off.

While he obviously knows his job, he also has a vested interest in keeping things as they are.

Surely there is no need to alter road layouts. Traffic lights can simply be switched off. All that is required here is the will to try.

And that has to come from politicians and in particular the transport chief Jon Rogers.

He could pick junctions suggested by our readers and tell council officers to turn off traffic lights for a trial period.

Why not start with the ludicrous traffic lights at the roundout at the foot of Jacobs Wells Road?

Improvements and innovations do not happen by doing nothing. We need simply to bite the bullet and try.