After getting the nod to come off the bench with 20 minutes to go, Tom Jarvis (who I was to replace) went and got himself sin-binned which halved the time left for me to make my glorious comeback so thanks Tom!
My solution is to remove the fatal flaw at the heart of the system - the original sin of priority, because once you've removed priority you've removed the need for traffic lights and the need for speed because we're in no rush any more.