As of: March 15, 2024, 9:00 a.m
By: Michaele Heske
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Traffic lights at night (symbolic photo) © Stefan Sauer/dpa
For traffic safety: The traffic lights on Gartenstrasse and Buchbacher Strasse are not switched off at night.
Dorfen
– The traffic lights in Dorfen stay on even at night.
The building and traffic committee decided this on Wednesday.
Martin Heilmeier (LDW), who had requested that two traffic lights be switched off at night and campaigned vociferously for this at the meeting, voted against this.
The committee almost unanimously followed the expertise of Police Chief Inspector Karlheinz Lauffer.
It was simply a question of safety to leave the traffic lights on, argued the traffic expert from the Dorfen police station.
Heilmeier advocated removing the traffic light on the B15 at Gartenstrasse and the emergency traffic light on Buchbacher Strasse from the network at night.
“We shouldn’t leave lights on in this day and age if it’s not necessary,” he argued.
There is hardly any traffic at this time.
A good option for consuming less energy: “Many cities do it that way.” Lauffer countered: “Electricity consumption is negligible, traffic safety comes first.”
In any case, the traffic lights on Gartenstrasse are only activated when necessary.
It switches from green to red when a car turns or a passer-by activates the signal at the push of a button because he wants to cross the main road.
“A dangerous intersection and a hotspot for accidents,” added the law enforcement officer.
The traffic light on Buchbacher Straße is directly in front of an invisible S-curve: “In the dark, the driver may miss the pedestrian.” In order to avoid accidents, the trend in the entire district is moving from dark mode to permanent mode, according to the traffic expert.
Heilmeier remained stubborn.
“How many accidents happen at night?” he asked Lauffer.
He argued with experiences at the Angermaier intersection.
The traffic lights going out at night pushed up the accident statistics there.
“We therefore put the system back into 24-hour operation in 2019,” explained Lauffer.
“We don’t want to risk accidents that are entirely possible if we turn off the traffic lights,” explained Deputy Mayor Ludwig Rudolf (CSU).
Mayor Heinz Grundner (CSU) said that late in the evening, especially on weekends, one or two pedestrians are not completely sober and therefore misjudge the situation when crossing the B15.