High-Tech LED Hourglass Traffic Light Concept

Terrible idea for bad drivers to have. And it would make some good drivers into bad ones.
 
I don't see this as being any worse than the current system. People will try to break the law regardless of how it's displayed.
 
issue with led traffic lights is it doesn't run hot so it doesn't melt the snow, i forget where i saw it but one place replaced there standard lights with led lights and found out quickly it doesn't melt the snow so in heavy snow fall you cant see anything
 
The main issue I see is the yellow is the same for both going from green to red, and red to green.

So say it's going from red to green, and say the intersection is mostly empty, so you don't see any cars stopped right now. but someone sees that it's yellow and they think that it's "about" to turn red. And then the other people still going through the intersection see the SAME yellow sign (with the same numbers roughly) and think "Oh it's about to turn red" ... so they both speed up to make it through the light and collide cause this light is retarded.

I saw someone on a metered on-ramp SLAM on their brakes in the HOV lane because they JUST realized it was metered. But they're too stupid to realize the HOV lane is exempt from that (that's the point of the HOV lane there durr). They nearly caused a massive accident because they're stupid as hell. 3 cars had to slam on their brakes and came incredibly close to colliding.

Blah...
 
Luxor said:
The best idea is a TIMER in big LED numbers next to the traffic color.

Malaysia has had this for years apparently

20070714_-_KL_Day_Two_013_Traffic_Light.JPG


I like numbers, you can see them a long ways away too.... and you can speed up to miss a red light (I always catch the damn yellow because its unknown times)
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There are some traffic lights around the US that also have similar timers. But the timers are for the pedestrians. I've always wondered why they don't put number timers above the lights to at least keep people from guessing and doing something stupid on the yellows.
 
iirc when i was in korea a lot of hte pedestrian walk/dont walk signs had count down timers on them. I'm all for them as long as they are replaced via attrition. i can definitely see the countdown to green leading to some problems :p
 
braamer said:
I, along with other color-blind individuals, still see color. We just have trouble differentiating between certain shades of colors. I have trouble with brown/green and blue/purple. The red and green for traffic signals are no issue.

My brother is even more color-blind than I am, and he has no issues either. I believe he sees 0 or 1 of the numbers in the color-blind spot test, whereas I see 2 or 3.
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you are overlooking red / green color blindness then. for them they would have trouble telling green from red. and that is the form that people where talking about.
 
I don't get why people talk about drag racing. Maybe it's just me, but I already watch the lights perpendicular to me to see when they turn yellow/red so I know I'm about to go. And if you're not the first car where you can't see those lights, you're not going to be racing.

Also I don't get the yellow in Europe because of manual. I drive manual and it takes less than a second to go from out of gear to car in motion.
 
toast0 said:
Giving a number will just be more confusing when the number needs to change, because of smart traffic controllers that do things like:

*) shorten the cycle in response to trains coming through (which may happen in the middle of a long green)
*) sit on green for the major traffic direction until there is traffic coming in the opposing direction

The other design with the countdown circle could work... on the other hand, the traffic controller will be quite a bit more expensive if it's driving all these additional outputs.
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No joke. From what I understand of normal light controllers, they're pretty frickin simple. New units would be increasingly complex... I don't want to be a victim of the first bug on the light controller.
 
Exavior said:
you are overlooking red / green color blindness then. for them they would have trouble telling green from red. and that is the form that people where talking about.
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yep, try driving with one in a city with horizontal lights, he finally said "fckit" and made me drive.
 
az_max said:
I live in a state where half the people don't know how to handle the current 3 light system. this would turn every intersection into a free-for-all.
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Agreed. Drivers can barely cope with our current system. Why make it even more complicated?
 
I am also color-blind between mostly shades of blue-to-purple and green-to-brown, but still see shades in-between. I can tell easy between most traffic light stages, except the oddball ones that make yellows almost look green and vice-verse.

I would prefer a traffic light system with a unique shape to each light stage (for the colorblind), a red light stage with a strobe (grabs your attention), and maybe a pulsing green light when it's about to go yellow so we don't live in fear of stagnant green lights.
 
Falknir said:
I would prefer a traffic light system with a unique shape to each light stage (for the colorblind), a red light stage with a strobe (grabs your attention), and maybe a pulsing green light when it's about to go yellow so we don't live in fear of stagnant green lights.
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actually, some countries (like mine) in europe have pulsing green lights on faster roads - since it takes time to decelerate, and no one wants the ambiguous yellow light stage to last long. this, of course, conflicts with a pulsing red light, hence there are none. add to that the standard of pulsing yellow when the light isn't working...

now, as for the shape - it's difficult to achieve good brightness when you have to mask a lot of the light - so it's mainly used on huge highway/tunnel entrance lights, or in a slow moving traffic inner city light (usually in the form of a green arrow, with the red and yellow the regular round)
 
I think shapes would be fine and found out some countries already use something similar for the same reason (colorblind drivers). So it's not that hard to see the already in-use round light as green, yellow being an inverted traingle (similar to a yield sign) or a diamond, and a square for red. Except the triangle one I don't see it obscuring that much light.

In my area they started updating their traffic lights and now have strobe in the red light to grab attention, and it does help with safety with night drivers and truckers (we got to many of those in my area).
 
The simplest system is a standard light, that counts down. There really doesn't need to be anything more complicated or simplistic than that.

But of course, they don't want to show you the timings of lights, because then you wouldn't run them as much and the income generated from red lights and red light camera's would go down.

i.e. these are not profitable. If they are safe or not really doesn't mean a hill of beans to any elected official. If it does not generate income, they won't approve of it.
 
The only problem with LED traffic lights is snow in the wintertime. LEDs produce next to nothing for heat and can't melt the snow covering them. The incandescent ones do.
 
Interesting concept, but still, if you live anywhere it snows, the build up can cover up the lights and the LED's are not hot enough to melt it.
 
Interesting concept... I had no idea that the current lighting system is so bad that it needs a re-design. Oh that's right, it doesn't.


I know there are other projects out there that can make better use of the time and $$ that a retrofit of this scale would require.
 
BlueMeanie said:
Also LEDs have other problems when used as Road Signs. LEDs do not generate heat - so when the snow and ice comes, all your signs end up unreadable. (Ah - just noticed PISquared beat me to this comment...)
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I was going to post exactly this on this thread. People have such short term memory about last summer's LED light study where snow accumulations was a problem.
 
Absolutely terrible idea and totally unnecessary.

Exavior said:
you are overlooking red / green color blindness then. for them they would have trouble telling green from red. and that is the form that people where talking about.
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I do this as well. But then, we are part of a rare minority that practice the art of "paying the fuck attention" while driving. Driving is serious business.
 
They have yellow lights before a green in Israel. Everyone just starts honking and guns their engines.

So just like a regular red light in NYC now :)
 
A lot of countries have a ready signal in the sequence already.

I think it would calm road rage, not increase it. Part of the frustration of sitting at a light is not knowing when it's going to change. I always find myself watching the light for the other direction to see when it goes red.
 
BigBeef said:
Then you'll have people intentionally drive slow up to a red light so it turns green right when they approach it.
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Which is a good thing. If you're driving properly to conserve energy, you SHOULD be doing this. Coming to a complete stop, then starting from zero, is the least efficient thing a car does. That's why "City" mileage is lower than highway, and why hybrids have much better City mileage. (And in some extreme examples like the Prius, the City mileage is better than the Highway, because it almost completely negates this period of maximum inefficiency.)

Besides, that site is just an "idea springboard", it's not like this is one that a government is directly proposing...

Personally, I like this one, although having such a fully-addressable display would be cost prohibitive.
 
dumbest shit i've seen in a while.

like all things in life,
keep it simple, stupid.
and,
if it aint broke, don't fix it.
 
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