Was reading the news articles about the guy who was killed at the Dundonald/Cedar intersection, and I remembered an old post on the Limey site where someone advocated leaving those particular traffic lights in an off state.

The reasons for such were that it would force drivers to pay more attention to traffic around them and not rely on anticipating jumping the green light or speeding up on a yellow.

While it may be inconvenient for pedestrians, could this be a viable idea, or something to try out during certain periods of the day?

There are a number of lights in town where that holds true.  Church and Par-la-Ville comes to mind.