Stop Light With a Progress Bar to End Road Rage

[zachary k]

love the idea, some lights seem like they are never gonna turn green. and it wont make the streets like drag racing you much of idiots, its no different than from green to yellow to red. now its just a more advanced yellow light from red to green. but, i would love if instead of having it change at set times, it changes depending on how many cars are in the street!

 

[mr_tuel]

I wonder how this will work at intersections that utilize traffic sensors?

 

[matt87_50]

cool, as long as Microsoft isn't involved, " 15 secs, 10 secs, 5 mins, 8 mins, 3 secs, 7 hrs"

I don't think that would help

 

[knightmike]

This is a bad idea. It will cause some people to act like a top fuel racer. It will cause some people to turn off their cars to save gas. Uh-oh, the car won't restart. However, they SHOULD have a timer like a crosswalk (and I often use the crosswalk timers for this purpose) to let you know when the light is going to change from green to yellow. I have some lights here in Vegas that seem to be designed so a cop can write you a ticket for running a red light. The light changes from green to yellow. It is yellow for a split second and then changes to red. You're 100 Ft from the light driving 45 MPH when it changes from green to yellow. You have two choices. You can run the red or you can literally slam on your brakes and pray your car stops before the crosswalk.

 

[pythy]

I hope this system is failproof, that is, the lights doesn't get stuck on red after the progress bar reaches zero, otherwise there'll be more roadrage!!

 

[GoldenShadow]

Sure the points are valid about the overlap in anticipating the green light and the other direction running yellows/reds. But the solution is to just add more seconds of dead time where all lights are red on intersections with visible indicators. We'll need an indicator on every light color type. From green to yellow to red to green

And for the additional layer those red light cameras that give you a ticket if you are in the intersection when the light is red. Punish red light running and early launches with the same fine

 

[darkguset]

Progress bars? What is next? A mouse pointer, the "hourglass" and how about a BSOD for when the lights go out? Also implement a CTRL+ALT+DEL button on the light for pedestrians to reset it! LOL

 

[lucky015]

Lets just hope its not a Windows progress bar... Those don't help anyone

 

[Ciuy]

there still are in Romania, every stop light has, very usefull in alot of situations. But we had a timer showing 1,2,3,...20,...40,...60 sec untill red/green will come on, better then this progress bar crap wich i bet u cant even see it at night.

 

[archange]

Well[citation][nom]Smochina[/nom]We had counters for red lights in Romania. They were removed because morons suddenly behaved like race drivers.[/citation]

Well, Smochina, dunno where you live, but I'm from Romania too and guess what? We still have those counters. They make waiting at the stops more relaxing indeed. As for the complete morons who mistake city streets for drag strips, no invention is going to help, I'm afraid.

Anyway, this seems to me like a natural evolution for the traffic lights. As for the naysayers, thank God the traffic signs / lights have been introduced a long time ago; fat chance for that happening with you guys around. Why, people could use any traffic light for racing - counter, progress bar or just the plain light bulb.

 

[kikireeki]

This idea is already in action, and yes it really helps!

 

[bad_code]

[citation][nom]TunaSoda[/nom]Right?What a dumb idea, this will only lead to drag racing[/citation]
Oh yeah! They may as well get those certified by the NHRA. REALLY STUPID!

 

[pocketdrummer]

About F***ing time!

Then again, if they put even HALF the money they spend on cameras and weird workarounds into something substantial (like actually optimizing the lights as a whole system or giving people viable alternatives), maybe we wouldn't have such a horrible traffic problem.

 

[jabliese]

Because progress bars are so relaxing.

 

[robneff]

I agree that this will cause more problems than it's worth. It's a novel idea, but people still run red lights, and with a count down to green, people will be getting ready to hit the gas and perhaps not look before going.

Certain crosswalk signs have had countdowns for years allowing drivers to know when to expect a yellow light, and when to expect a red light to expire (walk with count down, flashing do not walk, solid do not walk). If we had more of those, we wouldn't need red light progress bars.

Now if contruction signs had progress bars, I'd be all over it.

 

[kentlowt]

What they really need is an hourglass 😛

 

[leetoranges]

People in china have had countdown traffic lights for a while. But no body obeys lights there lol.
http://www.made-in-china.com/image/2f0j00UCHtIjDWJlqPM/LED-Traffic-Light-Countdown-Timer.jpg

 

[akshaybona]

in my country they just have a led countdown timer next to the signal......gentlemen start your engines 3,2,1....actually its really useful, on long signals do you know turning off your car if the signal is more than 80 seconds long saves fuel.....

 

[jacobdrj]

[citation][nom]NoCaDrummer[/nom]It's called a "yellow" light. Amazing invention. When it comes on, you have 3 seconds to clear the intersection.[/citation]
No, you don't, and that is part of the problem. There is no obvious standard for how long the yellow light goes for. Some yellow lights are 3 seconds, others 5, some 2... Better to just let the driver know how much time he/she has.

 

[Guest]

Nice idea but a bit behind the times. In Tiajin China (100 ks south of Bejing) they rethought the traffic light. They now have large flat LCD panels (1 metre by 30 cm) that are completely green and then start getting shorter as the light gets closer to change time time When the light changes the entire panel flashes yellow and then the entire panel changes to red and then starts getting shorter form the top so color blind can tell the difference. Makes more sense as the whole panel is used all the time much more visible in bad weather and unlike current LEDs round traffic lights the large vertical panels are almost impossible to be covered with ice and snow (because round light LEDs don't generate enough heat to melt snow) Visible from much further away a good thing for higher speed roads