The motorist's side of things is where the Ministry got a bit carried away. A pulsating amber light warned traffic that people were about to cross and a pulsating red light then gave the instruction to stop while the 'CROSS' light came on. After eight seconds, 'CROSS' began to flash, and the amber traffic light returned, this time flashing. Pedestrians then had seventeen seconds of Zebra crossing-style priority, during which time 'CROSS' flashed faster and faster. The Ministry was careful to distinguish between the lights that pulsated and those that merely flashed: the difference, apparently, is that a pulsating light never completely goes out. And after all that, the lights just switched off, indicating that traffic could move freely once more.
A huge publicity campaign was mounted. Posters and leaflets were drawn up and a 60-second promotional cartoon commissioned. In the key trial sites of Guildford, London and Lincoln, the film was shown in cinemas and police were sent out to show it in schools. Every schoolchild got a copy of the leaflet. The press were enlisted and bullied into reporting on the experiment a second time again a week later. The film got national television coverage. Surely this media blitz couldn't fail to get the public accustomed to the new crossings?
While the Panda Crossing was being forced onto an uncertain country, Ernest Marples was aware that further, more drastic measures might be needed to improve road safety in urban areas, and as such an even more radical experiment was set up to run the following year: the Controlled Traffic Area.
