My favourite traffic light in Dublin is the one on Kildare Street, just outside Leinster House. I like it because every time you push the pedestrian button, instantly and even during rush-hour, the lights change to let you cross. You should try it some time you're in the area. It's a safe and perfectly legal way to annoy taxi-drivers, and, more to the point, it is probably the only case in Dublin city centre of a pedestrian traffic light button that works.
The reason it works is because it thinks you're a politician. You see, TDs and senators have to attend committee meetings on the other side of Kildare Street, so when they're rushing back to the house for votes, they can't afford to be held up by traffic. Ordinary members of the public benefit by accident, and until they come up with a "smart" button which can tell politicians from the rest of us, the traffic light is a heart-warming example of democracy at work.
It may shock some people - it shocked me when I learned it from my colleague, the vastly respected Environment Correspondent, Frank McDonald - but many pedestrian traffic-light buttons are placebos, designed to make you feel good but doing precisely nothing.
There's a notorious example on College Green near the Irish Times office, where the pedestrian light is green for about eight seconds every three hours. By the time the oh-dear-was-that-a-red-light drivers have passed through, crossing time is reduced further, and pedestrians who are backed up as far as Stephen's Green by now have to sprint if they're going to make it to the other side today. (It's only a matter of time before College Green is the site of one of those Mecca-style stampede tragedies, and the only consolation is that we will have a photographer there the moment it happens.)
The poignant thing is that here, as at every other traffic light in Dublin, you'll see innocent people pressing the button as if it makes a difference. And when nothing happens, they'll press it again. And again. Then they'll press it more firmly, or more gently. Maybe there's a special combination, they're thinking. This helps pass the time, and eventually of course the light changes, and there's just enough doubt to preserve the idea that pressing the button made a difference. It made no difference at all, in fact, but people felt better because the button was there.
Security cameras on buses work in a similar way. Only a small percentage of them are active, but because we don't know which these are, the cameras act generally as a deterrent and a reassurance to well-behaved passengers. This is also true of the middle doors on buses. Most of these are not operative either, apparently. If you look closely, in fact, only a tiny percentage have hinges, which is why bus drivers never open them. But they make us feel good in two ways: first we can smile knowingly when tourists try to get on via the middle door and are left open-mouthed as the bus pulls away again without them. And second, there's the possibility that one day in an emergency the door will open. Today, when you're carrying two small children and there are 45 passengers with rucksacks standing between you and the front door, is not such an emergency.
The placebo effect is increasingly used to deal with Dublin's traffic problems. Did you know there is a cycle path on Inns Quay which is precisely the length of the Four Courts? Now I realise there tend to be a lot of protests outside the courts, and maybe the path is there to facilitate those who want to protest on bicycles. Otherwise it's useless, except as some sort of feel-good exercise.
AND look at those eye-in-the-sky helicopters, telling you traffic is heavy on all major routes. Chances are you will already know this by the time you hear it, and your options are: (1) continue to sit in your car; or (2) get out of the car and have a nervous breakdown, like Michael Douglas did in that film. The only really useful thing the eye-in-the-sky helicopter could do, in fact, is offer you a lift; and yet statistics show we like to hear those traffic reports (maybe for the reassurance that traffic isn't moving anywhere else either).
Of course, it's not just in traffic management that you get useless things designed to cod you into feeling better. While researching this column, I asked my wife if she could think of an example off the top of her head. She didn't hesitate: "epidurals," she said bitterly, handing me the baby. But you don't even have to go to hospital to find them. Ever wonder about those massive peppermills in restaurants? There's no good reason why pepper has to be stored in a peppermill a foot-and-a-half long, or why you can't put pepper on your own dinner for that matter. But it makes you feel good about the cost of the meal; after all, you wouldn't get a giant peppermill at home, would you?
Another area where the placebo-effect is increasingly popular is the automatic call-queueing system used by businesses to disguise the fact that they have nobody answering the phones. These have become very sophisticated, with the recorded messages growing more sympathetic the longer you wait ("We are really, really sorry about this delay, which is now 17 minutes - you must be seriously annoyed!") You're wasting your time holding on, of course. Nobody's going to answer, because there's only one operator prepared to work for the wages, and he's an illegal immigrant who was deported two hours ago, just after you started call-queueing. But the point is, the messages make you feel good.
I know this because just the other day, I was trying to get through to an insurance company, and while I was waiting I kept getting these updated recordings, apologising a little more sincerely every time. It felt good. Then suddenly, at 5 p.m., the line went dead. I thought I'd simply lost the connection, so I rang again. This time I got a different recorded message, saying "our opening hours are nine to five daily. Please try again tomorrow."
So then I went to the toolbox and got a hammer, and I came back and hit the phone with it. It didn't help me to get through to the insurance company. But it felt good.