Autoblog: A new twist on an old concept: the Stop Light.

^ Totally. That'll be nice so I don't have any psycho cars getting road rage at me when we all miss the light. There've been many times, when I just turn to the car behind me, give them the come hither finger, and hope that they don't run me over. :lol:
 
Blind_Io said:
I think it would be great for motorcycle riders so we can slow down and time our approach so we don't have to stop and put a foot down.
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I was behind a guy a few weeks ago who never put his foot UP. Creeped me right the hell out. I'm not entirely sure how he was going down the road at whatever speed with the sole of his shoe an inch off the asphalt. And the lights on that road are at least a mile apart.
 
Kiki said:
^ Totally. That'll be nice so I don't have any psycho cars getting road rage at me when we all miss the light. There've been many times, when I just turn to the car behind me, give them the come hither finger, and hope that they don't run me over. :lol:
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I commend this to your attention, then: http://www.greenlightstuff.com/trigger.html

You can make your own, of course, but you should attach some sort of magnet to your bike to trip the traffic lights.
 
Spectre said:
I commend this to your attention, then: http://www.greenlightstuff.com/trigger.html

You can make your own, of course, but you should attach some sort of magnet to your bike to trip the traffic lights.
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Oh thanks for the link! People just recommended taping some magnets under the bike, and I was skeptical that it would trigger the light. I guess it might work! :)
 
I've always thought lights needed something like this. It won't happen though. Red light cameras make money.
 
L2D said:
I thought they already have stuff like this in this pic

LED-Traffic-Light-Countdown-Timer.jpg
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+1

Seen plenty of those in China/Taiwan. Pretty useful if you are engaged in a TLGP :p
 
I would rather see this sort of indicator for yellow lights. Sometimes they're on for a whole eternity, other times they're on for a fraction of a nanosecond. I hate getting caught at just the right time where I have to make the decision to go through and risk a ticket or slam on the brakes and risk ending up in the middle of the intersection.
 
We have the red and amber sequence to tell us green is coming but I'd still like to see this.
 
We already have these timers for traffic lights for cyclists for years in The Netherlands at some places. But they're not working that great though. Often the timer lights count down very slowly in the beginning and about halfway they suddenly go out all at once and the light turns green. Or the last light is still on for another 30 seconds.

But if it works well it really is very handy :p
 
matt2000 said:
We have the red and amber sequence to tell us green is coming but I'd still like to see this.
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we don't have this,but the principle is the same.
Upshot of the red-orange- green is that you don't need to put up new lights everywhere, and it works kinda the same.
Downside is that you don't have a neato countdown thingie to look at

One definite thing they need to implement is let the orange light on long enough for people to get off the brake, put the car in gear, and be ready to go by the time the light turns green.

None of that "red for 1 min, yellow for 0.1sec, green for 15 seconds, repeat" stuff.
 
I am usually watching the reflection of the adjacent lights at intersection for the tell-tale 'red glow' (lots of the lights round here rotate clock or anti-clockwise through the intersection). But it would be really good when it goes through an opposing cycle. I vote yes for them.
 
am i the only one thinking that this is actually quite good for people who have those automatic start-stop systems in their car?
my mom's got a new mini only a few months ago, and when you put it into neutral and step off the clutch (if the engine is nicely warm that is) it'll just stop and then restart as soon as you hit the clutch. same problem as mentioned before with staying on the clutch all the time at an unknown light, but even worse.
it just doesn't do the car or your mpg any good turning it off for only 3 seconds or something. but then if the light would actually tell you how long it'd be until you're "green to go" you could actually make a reasonable choice...

same for people who turn off their car at lights manually of course... i do that from time to time at lights i know have a half-years-wait
 
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In Koper they have two traffic lights (the only ones left, because all the others have been replaced with roundabouts) with these counters on and I think it`s good. They are on the same street so there is no racing from one to the other because if you drive 50km/h you will cach the next green light in time, if you drive faster you will be too fast and will have to stop on the red. About the drag racing thing It might happen, but the street has regular radar controls on it so people drive more carefully. So in general it`s a good thing because they got rid of the blinking green light (the traffic lights used to flash the green light three times before they turned red but the government got rid of it because they thought people were speeding up to cath the green) so you see from far if should ease off the throttle or gun it :D
 
don't realy understand the use of these things...

when i'm standing at the lights, i'm watching cars crossing the crossroads. from the moment they stop at the lights, yours is about to turn green...
 
We have both kinds of stoplights around here, both as an experiment. The difference is that the green counts down too and the design is a little different (the section of the circle turns on or off). I?ll try to find a picture.

EDIT: Just as a funny info. We have yet to see sensors to trigger the stoplights. Yeah, go ahead and laugh.
 
I think the countdowns should be reserved for red lights only. having a countdown for green is just an unnecessary distraction and will have people racing to get through before the time runs out.

bone said:
don't realy understand the use of these things...

when i'm standing at the lights, i'm watching cars crossing the crossroads. from the moment they stop at the lights, yours is about to turn green...
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Which is fine, but if you're at an unfamiliar crossroads with different lanes and don't know the sequence it's not possible.

We get red and amber for about a second, which is enough to get into gear and take the handbrake off. If you're quick.
 
As soon as they remove the "EKO" moniker, I am in.
Also the bars only give relative values instead of absolute. So 1 bar could equal 1 second at the shortest red light, and 30 seconds at the longest red light.
 
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Might be a nice gimmick, but there would be no real value to red light countdowns over here.
The cycle of a 4-way N-S/E-W crossing with pedestrians works a bit like this:
Start out with red for everyone.
Red+yellow for N-S cars, pause for a second or two. Cars are not allowed to set off yet because it's still red. That phase is designed to shift into gear, start up the car, whatever.
Green for N-S cars and pedestrians, pause for however long the green phase is.
Red for N-S pedestrians and yellow for N-S cars, pause for three seconds (<=50kph speed limit) or longer (higher speed limits). Cars are still allowed to cross if medium braking would not stop them before the thick white line.
Red for N-S cars, wait for a few seconds depending on the junction size.
Start at the top with E-W.

All hail wikipedia for an illustration: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Traffic_lights_4_states.png 5 would be red again :)

The red-yellow phase already serves the purpose of preparing to set off (bikers are left in sensory darkness of course).

There are a couple of lights with timers over here, for example in some busy inner cities for pedestrians. Their goal is to stop people from walking while red by showing them when it will become green.
 
Here we have products of a modern British Education system - feel proud Brits. ...(Well English actually).

[YOUTUBE]W8g0XXzRYPg[/YOUTUBE]
 
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