But going back to the original posts, do we have the time to sit there dilligently waiting for the exact time to turn the reds off without being pestered by the a/c patiently waiting for the stops to be turned off.
As we all know there are other things going on most of the time, perhaps sometimes during moderate/heavy traffic levels ATCO's simply forget and have to be politely reminded by the pilot, no probs, everybody's human etc the system has failed safe.
It is perhaps during these times that pilots might assume that the ATCO has forgotten and proceed anyway. By the way I know the golden rule "Never assume always check" But this is 2006 traffic levels after all!