Nine traffic lights were changed to green to speed York transport boss Ann Reid's daughter to her wedding in 20 minutes - but how would they have fared without the help of council engineers? CHARLOTTE PERCIVAL took to the city's roads to find out.

THE now notorious drive through York which landed the city's transport boss Ann Reid in hot water took place on a Friday afternoon.

So armed with a copy of the wedding party's route, photographer Mike Tipping and I set off to test the same route yesterday afternoon, and see how long it took us.

We knew it took the wedding party 20 minutes to make the journey from Woodthorpe to the Treasurer's House on Friday, August 12, but we did not have such high expectations.

The journey began relatively trouble-free, as we drove along Moor Lane and down Tadcaster Road, blessed with three sets of green lights, and only stopping for queuing traffic at the roundabout by York College. Our luck ran out just before Knavesmire, and the next couple of lights were red as we approached, though they turned to green again within seconds.

But then things really started to slow down. We had come to a standstill well before we arrived at the lights by Blossom Street. They changed several times before we managed to get through, and the set by the Odeon caused a similar problem.

After eight minutes we were queuing for red lights by the station, and on escaping those, crawled along towards Ouse Bridge, waiting for traffic to filter through the lights towards the Minster. We fell foul of the lights by Bootham Bar, but passed through usual trouble-spot Gillygate easily, only stopping for the red light at the end.

We had to wait for the lights at the end of Lord Mayor's Walk, then passed smoothly on to Goodramgate and towards the Treasurer's House, arriving at our destination after 26 minutes - six minutes later than the wedding party. Councillor Reid, pictured, made national and international news, after the Evening Press reported last Saturday how her daughter Hannah's wedding party was whisked through nine sets of lights on green, by council engineers testing a new system to aid emergency vehicles.

She has rejected calls for her to stand down, but said her decision to allow the wedding party to be used in the experiment was "not the best judgement I have ever made".

She told the Evening Press she believed she was helping to test a traffic control system that could save lives.

She estimated about ten minutes or more were knocked off the journey time as a result.

Updated: 09:57 Saturday, October 22, 2005