Traffic Light With a Progress Bar

Spewn said:
I see we're ignoring the fact that if someone in front of you stops, no matter how quickly, your inability to stop before hitting them is related to your following distance being too close and not their stopping rate being too fast.

What of the fact that idiots just shouldn't be allowed to drive in the first place? Shouldn't we be trying to figure out how to A) Get idiots off the road and B) prevent idiots from getting on the road in the first place, instead of figuring out how to cater and pander to the idiots?
Click to expand...

John_Keck said:
Easier said than done.
Click to expand...

Yup. This is MUR-KA where driving is a god given right gosh-darnit...

Sigh. Having lived in Germany for quite a few years, being surround by extremely safe drivers (even when going in excess of 200kph), I am honestly paranoid about driving in the US.

Too many people talking on their cell phones (of course, holding them in front of their face with the speakerphone on), their pants so low they're wrapped around the clutch/brake/gas pedals, or they have no situational awareness whatsoever because their subwoofers are giving them MTBI. Not to mention that none of them actually learned to drive in the first place before getting their license.

This is just one more thing that is going to cause idiot drivers to make poor decisions about where they point their 4000lb. killing machine.
 
I came up with a very simple method of letting people know if they can make the light. Put a large line across the road some distance back from intersection. This will let people know that if they are going to speed limit and there back tires have crossed that line they will make the light if it just turned yellow. You then put another one closer up that is smaller that represents the same idea but at 10MPH less then whatever the speed limit is. This way people will know if they will be able to make it, and at 2 different speeds. And it doesn't require anything fancy.

Downside is that people will not run yellow lights as much and cities will loose income.
 
westrock2000 said:
I came up with a very simple method of letting people know if they can make the light. Put a large line across the road some distance back from intersection. This will let people know that if they are going to speed limit and there back tires have crossed that line they will make the light if it just turned yellow. You then put another one closer up that is smaller that represents the same idea but at 10MPH less then whatever the speed limit is. This way people will know if they will be able to make it, and at 2 different speeds. And it doesn't require anything fancy.

Downside is that people will not run yellow lights as much and cities will loose income.
Click to expand...

They have one already. it's called the crosswalk. if you make it to the crosswalk and it's still green, you can make it. If you're coming to the crosswalk and it's yellow, you should stop ;)

seriously, here they put a solid white line between the lanes approx 30ft leading up to the intersection. It'll take you approx 3 seconds at 40mph to make it from there to the crosswalk. If you see the countdown timer on the pedestrian sign, and it's above 3 seconds, you'll make the light. If not, you should prepare to stop.
 
This should be required for red light intersections where you have NO idea how long the yellow is which can be just as unsafe when people do interesting things (ie slam on their brakes) to make sure they don't get a ticket.
 
This is a dumb idea, people are terrible drivers already...

I use the pedestrian lights right now to judge when the lights are going to change, but still... people are barely capable of staying in their lane or paying attention to cars in front of them that this would just cause more problems then not.

It's ridiculous how many accidents occur in America because of stupid, negligent drivers. How many accidents were truly unavoidable? Something caused by a mechanical failure or an act of nature? It's considerably less than people getting into accidents because they were drunk, high, tired, not paying attention, distracted, etc. I'm not saying people don't make mistakes, but how many of those are easily avoided?

Today I took the bus for the first time in Seattle and it was faster than driving, cheaper, and easier. I had to for jury duty because parking in downtown Seattle is ridiculous expensive, I spent $30 something the first day for ~8 hours. And considering they give you bus tickets (which only cost $2.75 to begin with) it was stupid to drive. That and there is a park and ride 5 minutes from my house that's practically a direct-route to downtown Seattle. Moron's who aren't capable of driving should be forced to take the buses, the only bad part was waiting for the bus route that didn't run until later in the day.

The only problem I see is that many people would lose their jobs if we had higher standards for getting a license in America. Less people required for the DMV, less people required for auto insurance (because less people would be driving and getting into accidents), less people required for auto repair (again less accidents), less people for ambulances, police, etc. for attending to those accidents... maybe they'd get spread out to better purposes. The auto industry would be fucked because people wouldn't be crashing brand new cars. Then the road maintenance, blah blah... there are just so many jobs that rely on people driving cars and getting into accidents.

I just gotta hope that my Mazda3 holds up and safes my life when that moron inevitably crashes into me. I've already been rear-ended twice by two morons. Both times in stop and go traffic. The first guy must have hit me going 30, ended up requiring a month in the shop and $6,000 in repairs (His insurance paid for a rental car and all of it, so no biggie)... And he knew it was stop and go traffic before he hit me, we were stopping/going for 5 minutes. He stopped paying attention, and there was a huge gap between me and him, but we were still going like 5 mph.. so he must have sped up thinking traffic was moving before he realized that wasn't the case. Second guy was some kid who had a bunch of excuses, the damage was basically my license plate so I just let him go. And both of these times I knew it was going to happen just by looking in my rear-view mirror and thinking "That fucker isn't going to stop in time..."

Then there's the people that can't park in a parking lot. Is it really that complicated to put your car centered between the two white lines? And if you make a mistake to spend the 15 seconds to back out and correct it?

And then there's also this one big intersection that has a ridiculously short green light for the turn lanes. Everyone who takes this route knows the light is short, and you can get 5-7 cars through it if everyone is paying attention and accelerates at a decent speed. But you get the morons NOT paying attention and accelerate slow as balls and you get 2-3 cars through the intersection and everyone else has to wait another 2-3 minutes. This makes me so fucking pissed.

I'm also not saying I haven't made mistakes, but at least I learn from them and don't make them again. And luckily none of my mistakes have resulted in accidents although some were close.

GAH dumb people...
 
I already saw this in other countries over 10 years ago, and FINALLY in only ONE intersection around my town they have a countdown timer. Why does it take so long to adapt to this idea? Its so fucking annoying.
 
Put a reverse progress bar on the yellow light but only at red light camera stops.
 
This is all moot anyway. They're going to bring back police traffic directors on little podiums in every intersection with a light, soooooo
 
How could anyone call this stupid ? Its probably the single biggest innovation to reduce road rage in the history of driving !!!!!
 
I think it would be better on the green vs the red. Then you know how long the green will last.
 
- Less pollution, as drivers can turn their engines off and cut carbon emissions while waiting for the green light,
- Less fuel consumption, as turning off vehicle engines lowers fuel consumption in the long run,
- Less stress, since drivers know exactly how long to wait, and
- Safer driving, as all traffic participants are fully aware of how much time they have left before the light changes, reducing the chance for potential traffic accidents.
Click to expand...

http://infosthetics.com/archives/2009/12/eko_a_traffic_light_with_progress_bars.html
 
Did MS program this thing?

It'll get to 99% and that last 1% will take half again the time of the previous 50%....
 
westrock2000 said:
I came up with a very simple method of letting people know if they can make the light. Put a large line across the road some distance back from intersection. This will let people know that if they are going to speed limit and there back tires have crossed that line they will make the light if it just turned yellow. You then put another one closer up that is smaller that represents the same idea but at 10MPH less then whatever the speed limit is. This way people will know if they will be able to make it, and at 2 different speeds. And it doesn't require anything fancy.

Downside is that people will not run yellow lights as much and cities will loose income.
Click to expand...
I've seen quite a few intersections where the lane lines go solid at about that distance, just like you describe. It seems to me that making such a practice into law would be a good thing--reduce accidents, reduce red-light-runners, etc. And it's cheap, too! (which probably means it'll never be done). Heck, you could apply a similar idea to following distances - space the dashes between lanes such that you pass one per second. Count the number of dashes between you and the person in front = following time.

Blazestorm said:
The only problem I see is that many people would lose their jobs if we had higher standards for getting a license in America. Less people required for the DMV, less people required for auto insurance (because less people would be driving and getting into accidents), less people required for auto repair (again less accidents), less people for ambulances, police, etc. for attending to those accidents... maybe they'd get spread out to better purposes. The auto industry would be fucked because people wouldn't be crashing brand new cars. Then the road maintenance, blah blah... there are just so many jobs that rely on people driving cars and getting into accidents.
Click to expand...
Those jobs are really "overhead" jobs--they're jobs which don't directly produce anything, but which facilitate economic activity. Eliminating those jobs would reduce costs for everyone else, and open up (real, productive) jobs for those folks.
 
I like this idea... sometimes yellow lights stays a very long time, and that tend to make me think i can get through and I normally do... but only just. Either this, of make the yellow light count constant.

Sides, with this I don't have to look at other lights to know when it'll go green >.>
 
I don't think it would matter that much, because the person in front of you would still be trying to finish their Txt message, apply makeup, eat, scratch that personal itch or other activity other than driving, so they would sit stopped for half the light cycle anyway...
 
westrock2000 said:
I came up with a very simple method of letting people know if they can make the light. Put a large line across the road some distance back from intersection. This will let people know that if they are going to speed limit and there back tires have crossed that line they will make the light if it just turned yellow. You then put another one closer up that is smaller that represents the same idea but at 10MPH less then whatever the speed limit is. This way people will know if they will be able to make it, and at 2 different speeds. And it doesn't require anything fancy.

Downside is that people will not run yellow lights as much and cities will loose income.
Click to expand...

An intersection in my city does this. About 200m back, there's a "stop light ahead" sign with two amber lights. They come on during the green cycle to warn a yellow is coming, at precisely the time such that, if you reach that sign and the lights on it are off, and you're doing the speed limit, you will make it through the intersection. If they start before you do though, it tells you the light is about to change ("prepare to stop when flashing" at the bottom) and gives you a good distance to stop (it's on a major road, going down a steep hill, mind you).
 
Force field. About 3-4 seconds after a light turns red, a force field should block traffic from these directions until about 2 seconds after the light turns green. Go ahead and put status bars on the force field too - if you want to gun it before the force field comes down, you're in for a world of hurt.
 
karoc said:
They have these in China and it's a mess - just as you'd expect, people tend to gun it when they know the light's about to change.

But then traffic there is a mess in general.
Click to expand...

Laff. Yes.

I have never seen driving to equal what I see in China on a daily basis. Lanes mean nothing. Traffic rules boil down to he who has the biggest balls has the right of way. Crossing the street is like playing Frogger. Standing in the middle of a 6 lane road with 7 or 8 lanes of cars in it and about a foot separating you from instant death is not good times.

People may gun it when they know the lights about to change but from what I have seen it's a minor issue compared to the lunacy going on all around. If you cross at a crosswalk you have you own little countdown timer...if its under 5 seconds you just do not cross, or you run like a bat out of hell.

I have seen very few people running reds though...maybe knowing the dude at the other side of the intersection will plow into you the moment his light goes green is a deterrent.
 
Azhar said:
Force field. About 3-4 seconds after a light turns red, a force field should block traffic from these directions until about 2 seconds after the light turns green. Go ahead and put status bars on the force field too - if you want to gun it before the force field comes down, you're in for a world of hurt.
Click to expand...

We'd have to install forcefield overrides on every emergency and law enforcement vehicle. The price would be astronomical!
 
i agree it sounds cool but lots of kids and immature adult drivers are going to be killing their cars taking off at green lights...
 
djBon2112 said:
An intersection in my city does this. About 200m back, there's a "stop light ahead" sign with two amber lights. They come on during the green cycle to warn a yellow is coming, at precisely the time such that, if you reach that sign and the lights on it are off, and you're doing the speed limit, you will make it through the intersection. If they start before you do though, it tells you the light is about to change ("prepare to stop when flashing" at the bottom) and gives you a good distance to stop (it's on a major road, going down a steep hill, mind you).
Click to expand...

the local police took those out because people were speeding up to make the light and running a red, or causing worse accidents.

Now the lights cycle to all red until the trip-pads are hit. so if there is no traffic the lights cycle to red and you have to slow down to the speed limit or they stay red, until you come to a full stop.
I have noticed if you slow to the posted 45 MPH for the intersection the lights change, if you stay at the average 65MPH on the road, the lights stay red for 30-40 seconds longer

When they took out the warning lights, they put two overload pads in for the light (so they stay green longer during heavier traffic periods) but at night they measure speed between the two and slow the light changes for faster cars, so the cops can write more tickets for running the reds as well as speeding.
 
spinelli said:
I have never seen driving to equal what I see in China on a daily basis. Lanes mean nothing. Traffic rules boil down to he who has the biggest balls has the right of way. Crossing the street is like playing Frogger.
Click to expand...
Apparently driving in the Philippines is just insane. What few police can be bribed for pretty much any traffic infraction, pedestrians who don't cross at crosswalks do not have the right of way and can be run over and killed. At least that's what the Filipinos at work tell me....

Maybe it's a bit like telling Americans that Canadians live in igloos and don't have running water.... :confused:

India, Russia, China, and Philippines are all supposedly hellishly terrible for driving. Anywhere else?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top