What would happen if traffic lights were suddenly switched off? Would there be gridlock or would the queues of frustrated drivers miraculously disappear?

People in London are about to find out the answer in Britain’s first test of the theory that removing lights will cure congestion.

For six months, lights at up to seven junctions in Ealing will be concealed by bags and drivers will be left to negotiate their way across by establishing eye contact with pedestrians and other motorists.

Ealing Council believes that, far from improving the flow of traffic, lights cause delays and may even increase road danger. Drivers race towards green lights to make it across before they turn red. Confidence that they have right of way lulls them into a false sense of security, meaning that they fail to anticipate hazards coming from the side. The council hopes that drivers will learn to co-operate, crossing junctions on a first-come first-served basis rather than obeying robotic signals that have no sense of where people are waiting.

Westminster City Council is also considering a trial but has yet to identify likely junctions.

Ealing found evidence to support its theory when the lights failed one day at a busy junction and traffic flowed better than before. Councillors have approved a report which recommended that they “experimentally remove signals since experience of signal failure showed that junction worked well”.

The Conservative-controlled council has won the support of Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who is responsible for all 5,000 sets of lights in the capital through Transport for London.

Mr Johnson has voiced his frustration at having to wait at red lights in a car. He told the London Assembly last October: “I was driving around Ealing one Sunday and I found the traffic lights absolutely insane. Insane. There was hardly any pedestrian traffic to speak of and we were being kept at red for minute after minute. The thing was totally crackers.”

David Millican, a Conservative councillor and Ealing’s Cabinet member for transport, said: “We want to end the situation where no one is moving and time and space are being wasted. We respect walking and cycling but we also have to respect that people want to get around in their cars.”

Mr Millican said that pedestrian crossings would be relocated away from some junctions. Some lights would be replaced by “give way” signs and others by temporary mini-roundabouts painted on the road.

He said that the council was also considering having all lights flash at amber late at night, as in some European countries, signalling to drivers that they could proceed with caution. He also wants traffic turning left to be allowed to go through red lights at junctions where there would be no risk of causing collisions. He said that the turning on to the A40 at Perivale would be an ideal location for a trial of “turn left on red”.

However, unlike switching off lights, these trials would have to be approved by the Department for Transport, which is very slow to accept changes to traffic rules.

Ben Hamilton Baillie, a transport consultant who has studied schemes on the Continent where lights have been removed, said that traffic flow and safety tended to improve.

In the Dutch town of Drachten the removal of traffic lights at one big junction resulted in crashes falling from 36 in the four years before the scheme was introduced to two in the next two years. The average time for each vehicle to cross the junction fell from 50 seconds to 30 seconds despite a rise in the volume of traffic.

Mr Hamilton Baillie said that the benefits of removing controls from junctions had been established 30 years ago, when a shortage of police in Bristol resulted in the withdrawal of officers who directed traffic.

“Everybody reported that traffic flowed more smoothly but the evidence was ignored and lights continued to spread across the network. Lights make people feel there is stability and order but that is just psychological. There is little evidence of any tangible benefits.”

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