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Traffic lights worldwide set to change after a Swedish engineer saw red
- pardavis 7y agoWhere I’m from in southern USA, there are 65mph state highways with 4 way traffic light intersections. There is always a “stop light ahead” sign, and the rule is simple: if you are traveling the speed limit and you pass the “stop light ahead” sign before the light starts to change, you will clear the yellow phase.
- VBprogrammer 7y agoDriving in Canada was the first I've encountered stop lights on such a high speed road (I think maybe it was less, perhaps 50mph). I have to say it felt pretty crazy. However, the same situation in the UK would have a roundabout with half a mile of yellow warning lines on the run up to it. For example: https://goo.gl/maps/Z7vDzEimPLZvyXuK6 https://goo.gl/maps/Z7vDzEimPLZvyXuK6
- JoeOfTexas 7y agoIn Texas, if you pass the stop light sign, you hit the gas, turn on the high beams, and pray to jesus it doesn't turn.
- Kudos 7y agoThat's clever, I wonder how well known it is though.
- dariusj18 7y agoSome municipalities have been busted for reducing their yellow light times to get more tickets.
- allenofthehills 7y agoIn Idaho, where they also have 65+ mph highways with traffic light intersections, they have the "stop light ahead" signs, but instead of having long yellow lights, there are lights on the "stop light ahead" sign. (The lights on the sign will start flashing several seconds before the traffic lights change to yellow.) The rule is basically the same though, if you pass the sign before its lights start flashing, you'll make it thru the intersection, otherwise, start slowing down.
- chooseaname 7y agoWe have these in places in Florida. I still slow down (but not slower than the posted min) through these intersections. I've seen way too many accidents on these types of intersections to trust anybody.
- ainiriand 7y agoAt least here in Europe yellow means 'stop in safety conditions'. So if the driver saw yellow and didn't stop then they can't blame that the red light came too fast because they should be stopped already.
- lmilcin 7y agoThe issue is that somebody decided that you should be clear of the intersection as soon as the light turns red but it is not enough time if you travel slowly or if you need to turn left. If you close to the intersection you might still see green or yellow very briefly but the act of slowing down to turn left is enough for you to run in red light territory and get fined. There apparently is a formula that calculates how long travelers need to leave the intersection and, presumably, if you are still there it means you ran red light. It seems the formula is wrong as it does not grant enough time for lawful travelers in normal conditions.
- auiya 7y ago> There apparently is a formula that calculates how long travelers need to leave the intersection and, presumably, if you are still there it means you ran red light. It seems the formula is wrong as it does not grant enough time for lawful travelers in normal conditions. The condition of waiting for oncoming traffic to clear the intersection so that you may safely make a turn across the oncoming traffic stream is a common one, and presumably leaves most drivers in the intersection when the light turns red in dense traffic.
- jagged-chisel 7y agoI witness drivers in this situation just sitting right where they are, past their stop line, left signal blinking, far too close to the perpendicular travel lanes, refusing the clear the intersection until they get the arrow. Worse: they're the only ones wanting to turn, they're past the sensor, and the next cycle is solid green only.
- nunwuo 7y ago> So if the driver saw yellow and didn't stop then they can't blame that the red light came too fast because they should be stopped already. Huh? Even if you slam your brakes immediately when the light turns yellow, you might not stop on time if the yellow light is only on for, say, 100 milliseconds if you were close enough to the intersection. This isn't at all as simple as you make it out to be, and the article made a pretty good point.
- goda90 7y agoExcuse the anecdote over links to actual studies, but one of my old roommate's father worked on traffic light systems that time the yellow light based on the speed of cars approaching. They extended the time for cars that couldn't stop safely or that were accelerating to get through the light. This apparently reduced accidents at those intersections.
- inanutshellus 7y agoYup, but that's custom tech your municipality sprung for. In the '90s there was a town I lived in whose lights identified your approach and changed to green for you as you arrived (at low density times). If you went the speed limit, you never stopped or slowed down. I've pined for that tech in every place I've lived since. :-D
- jagged-chisel 7y agoI seem to run across the opposite: I'm approaching a green on a night with practically no traffic, and the thing changes, timed to go red before I could get through the yellow. So I sit, waiting while it's green the other way, and no traffic in sight.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoTie it into a weather API so we can have a longer pause between red and green depending on weather conditions to give people time to slide through the intersection.
- Dumblydorr 7y agoLights seem incredibly inefficient to me. How many times have I been driving towards a green at the speed limit and it turns yellow just in time to force me to slam on the brakes or the gas pedal, all to let one waiting car go? Why not detect my coming and wait for an efficient yellow timing, thus I am not wasting gas and braking unnecessarily? This would substantially improve carbon emissions and brake dust, yet dozens of times per month, I see lights inefficiently block traffic unnecessarily.
- lunias 7y agoAgreed. The traffic light paradigm that I've seen popping up more often (which really bothers me) is the red left turn arrow. Light's green, no oncoming traffic; but can't make a very safe left because there's a red arrow staring back at me.
- C1sc0cat 7y agoThis where you need filter signals
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoA red left arrow is just the state/municipality telling you you're too stupid to make the decision yourself. I'm a big fan of the "green for a few seconds then flashing yellow" arrow.
- lunias 7y agoSeems like the only possible reason to me... sadly we live in a society that caters to the lowest common denominator rather than demanding and rewarding excellence. I worry for future generations. When I lived in Tucson AZ almost every light was set up for lagging left turns. Where you can go when it's safe, but in the event of heavy traffic you'd be able to count on having a green arrow to empty the left turn lane - worked great!
- magduf 7y ago
- inanutshellus 7y agoI'm surprised! Where I live you're safe from the red light camera if your front-two tires are over the white line when the light changes to red. Sounds like in Oregon you're only safe if you're out of the intersection when it turns red, which seems entirely absurd, especially for tourists / newcomers to the area. How am I supposed to know how quickly your yellow light changes on this street?
- jnty 7y agoYes this is bizarre - it's the same in the UK, where crossing the stop line on red is the offence. Often in cities traffic will continue through the amber light so you often have to turn on red to clear the junction. (Pedestrian lights are generally timed to account for this.) What if an obstruction appears in the road - a pedestrian or a u-turning car? Are you just meant to plow into them?
- inanutshellus 7y ago> What if an obstruction appears in the road - a pedestrian or a u-turning car? Are you just meant to plow into them? I'm guessing you're supposed to get the robot-generated penalty, get your court date, take the day off of work, and plead your blindingly-obvious case to the court. ..... /or/ they could change to make the offense fire if you enter the intersection illegally instead of exit "illegally". :-\ Completely nutty.
- bitexploder 7y agoMany municipalities make them non-moving violations and won’t even let you appear in court for them. It is an outright scam.
- yaur 7y agoA friend of mine got one of these and if you read carefully they aren't really even "tickets" though they try hard to obscure that. AFAICT the only real recourse the company that issues these "violations" has if you don't pay is to pursue them through ordinary collections, which I suspect would be difficult if you were to dispute the "debt."
- strenholme 7y agoOne dirty trick some cities do is reduce the time traffic lights are yellow to increase red light camera ticket revenue: https://nypost.com/2012/10/08/citys-gotcha-traffic-cameras-use-short-yellow-lights-to-increase-ticket-revenue-study/ https://nypost.com/2012/10/08/citys-gotcha-traffic-cameras-u...
- auiya 7y agoIt seems like the main issue here is the automated ticket generation from traffic cameras, not the yellow light timing. People generally police themselves in traffic out of self-interest for their own vehicles. Nanny cams meant to issue fines at every intersection are an egregious overreach.
- kstenerud 7y agoWhat would make even more sense is to progressively change the lights to give the driver a better sense of the timing. For example, in 2s intervals: Green -> Green + Yellow -> Yellow + Red -> Red This way, you not only know from a glance how stale the yellow is, but also you get a better indication of the timing. When a light simply goes Green -> Yellow -> Red, you have no frame of reference from which to gauge how long it will stay yellow, especially since every light has different timing. You could even go one further, using blinking lights: Solid green -> Green + Yellow (yellow blinks 3 times), Yellow + Red (red blinks 3 times) -> Solid red And to improve traffic startup, you could do the opposite (Red -> Red + Yellow -> Green), as is done in many European countries.
- tdburn 7y agoI’ve been thinking for a long time that a blinking yellow would be revolutionary and simple. They should make the yellow begin to blink when it’s x number is seconds from going red. Because as is you have little reference to how soon it will shift.
- dsego 7y agoNo, you need a blinking green that indicates it's about to turn yellow! And this already exists in some countries.
- gizmo385 7y agoBlinking yellow already indicates proceed with caution in the US, so this would lead to ambiguity, which isn't something you want on the road.
- noneeeed 7y agoSomething like that has been tried before, using a timer display. It was pretty disastrous because people accelerated to beat the red. I think this was in China, so perhaps in other countries it might work better if the driving culture was more cautious. Timers on the red seem to work well though, giving people advance waning to prepare to go, get in gear etc. There is one near me that seems to help get the traffic moving through faster when the lights change.
- wool_gather 7y ago> When Järlström brought the issue to the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying, [they] fined him $500 [...] for practicing engineering without a professional license. Wow, as described this is outrageous. It's not like he was out there changing the lights himself. He made a proposal. I guess that's why he won the court case, although I think that might go too far as well: requiring licenses for engineers makes sense. It should be required for actually implementing changes, though, not just talking about them.
- magduf 7y ago>requiring licenses for engineers makes sense. It should be required for actually implementing changes, though, not just talking about them. In civil engineering, some engineer on the project (usually the head engineer) has to be licensed, and has to sign off on it, and this makes him liable if the engineering is faulty. What happened in this guy's case is simply that, in his letter, he called himself "an engineer", and the state board slapped a fine on him for the audacity of calling himself an engineer without a PE license. He wasn't "practicing", he was making a proposal in the form of a letter. It's good that he got it reverse and free speech won, but look at what he had to do to accomplish that. The state board should be forced to pay him an enormous fine for attempting to restrict his free speech.
- stuart78 7y agoOregon (and New Jersey) restricts gas pumping to station attendants as well. Not saying these things are related, not saying they are not.
- kayfox 7y agoThey did not fine him right off the bat, there was some back and forth where, possibly because of a language issue, they got the impression that he was asserting himself as a licensed engineer. That's bad in nearly every jurisdiction in most places in the world.
- wool_gather 7y agoThanks. This would have been a good detail for the article author to include. Do you have a link to a better description of the dispute?
- daveslash 7y agoObligatory relevant XKCD Comic https://xkcd.com/277/ https://xkcd.com/277/
- KingMachiavelli 7y agoI always give traffic control stuff some leeway during rush hour since obviously traffic engineering has to make compromises, BUT I hate that no one cares about low traffic hours at all. I'm often going to or from a friends house that lives near a major highway with frequent lights. The lights are stuck on some timing such that driving the speed limit can result in getting stuck at nearly every stop light.
- zenexer 7y agoMany of the traffic lights in Boston seem to have significantly shorter yellow light durations than the rest of Massachusetts--roughly a single second. It's just one of the many factors that makes driving in Boston feel like a constant battle for survival. Meanwhile, the rest of the world apparently considers 3 seconds to be too short. I'd be quite delighted if Boston followed suit.
- post_break 7y agoNow I wish green lights had strobes to wake up zombies looking at their phones. I'm going to wear out my horn at this point due to people treating a red light like phone time out and not paying attention.
- PhasmaFelis 7y agoEnh, that's annoying, but easily fixed by a polite quick-tap on the horn. I've made a conscious decision not to let it stress me out when someone adds all of 5 seconds to my commute. I'm more annoyed by the people who lay on the horn like a New York cabbie if I'm half a second late off the line (sometimes because of an obstruction they can't see).
- lbsnake7 7y agoYou aren’t supposed to take that too seriously. The cabbies are usually doing it for dramatic effect for their passenger. It works for me when I’m in a cab and my cabbie honks at people. Feels like he’s trying to get somewhere on time. Probably if I paid attention, I would see him honking at people waiting for legitimate reasons.
- PhasmaFelis 7y agoI'm talking about ordinary commuters who honk like they're furious cabbies.
- post_break 7y agoI have to honk more than a second to get them to realize I'm honking at them. And 9 times out of 10 unless I honk I won't make the light because I'm 2 cars back and the people in front are either not paying attention too, or are too scared to honk. The worst are left green arrow snoozers.
- gumby 7y agoClearly we need a standard for traffic lights to push alerts to neighboring phones and a regulation mandating its deployment to traffic lights and support by handset vendors.
- surfsvammel 7y agoOh. To think things like this will all be obsolete by the time my son would get a drivers license. crossing fingers for self-driving-cars
- driverdan 7y agoThat's far too optimistic. We may have autonomous vehicles by then, depending on his current age, but human driven vehicles will still exist. Signals aren't going away.
- MayeulC 7y agoSpeaking of red lights, I have been wondering for a while now if they wouldn't be an ideal platform to experiment with image recognition for self driving vehicles? I can elaborate more, but you also get the benefit of fairer traffic lights. I'm saying this as I commute by bike, and often have to wait at a red light, with no car in sight. Some have detectors, but they often don't work on bikes (even when putting my bike on the ground, in case of inductive sensors).
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago> Järlström has won not only the right to refer to himself as an engineer, a refund of the surveying board fine (though not the ticket penalty) Would be amusing if he sued the state in small claims for extortion and racketeering to get the ticket penalty back.
- stefan_ 7y agoIf you are approaching a turn, you should be driving at a fraction of the speed limit before even approaching the stop line. That seems to suggest that the time frame in which you can safely stop upon seeing a yellow light is correspondingly longer than when going straight at the speed limit. So if anything, yellow light for turns should be shorter. If you are still in the intersection by the time the light goes red, it is probably because you had to brake hard when you realized you had to yield to someone (i.e. ped on a crosswalk going straight). In this case, you should absolutely get the ticket because all western driving codes expressly forbid entering an intersection unless you can promptly execute your turn without waiting; it is strict liability. So sure, you go slower through an intersection when turning. But this entirely ignores that you had much more time to stop safely for the yellow light; braking distance is quadratic with speed, so the effect is even more lopsided.
- AlfeG 7y agoTotally agree. Entering on yellow should be a last resort, that is not driven by the hurry. In Ukraine we have 4 seconds of blinking green light before yellow, that should be more then enough to notice and slow down for full stop. But I do like much more traffic lights with number of seconds till light change (in Kharkiv almost all trafic lights are replaced with numbered one). This is incredibly usefull, cause You can notice numbers from long distance and plan route accordingly. It's pitty that not all cities and countries go for traffic lights with timers.
- not_a_cop75 7y agoWhile we're at it, can we insist that all lights use blue-green instead of just green? That could help those that suffer from color blindness.
- ethanwillis 7y agoI had an uncle who was color blind, as in fully color blind. When I was a kid I asked him how he could drive not knowing if he should stop or not. What he said to me was "Green is on top, yellow is in the middle, red is on bottom." It's such a simple answer that I was amazed I hadn't thought of it.
- not_a_cop75 7y agoWhile true, and obvious to experienced drivers, not every light is vertical. Some are horizontally placed.
- graywh 7y agoHe may be joking? The US and Canada have green on the bottom.
- ethanwillis 7y agoMy mistake, I actually got the order wrong because I don't ever need to think about it..
- qtplatypus 7y agoOne of the things I noticed in the anime Madoka Magica was that the traffic lights had a diffrent shape. Red was an octagon. Yellow was a triangle. Green was a circle.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- danschumann 7y agoI think victimless crimes are kinda dangerous... THE STATE vs SO-AND-SO... Okay, yes, we need traffic laws, but some the people on the receiving end of their traffic violation should have some say. Did they feel endangered? Did they feel wronged? Or, was it justifiable? The drug was is another example of the state vs so-and-so. The victims are somehow the users, but they're also the defendants. So, can they drop the charges against themselves?
- balls187 7y agoThis isn't a crime. It's extortion. It's a red-light camera, implemented in a way to take money from the citizenry and line the coffers of city government (though a % goes to the manufacturer of the camera).
- fnordfnordfnord 7y ago>When Järlström brought the issue to the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying, the state board opened an investigation in 2015 and fined him $500 the following year for practicing engineering without a professional license. What a bunch of pricks. Vogons couldn't have done any worse than the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- SECProto 7y agoWhile on this issue I mostly agree with the defendant, I think it's reasonable to protect certain titles (engineer, doctor, lawyer, dentist). For a parallel situation, imagine a hypothetical person named Phil, who has a doctorate in psychology. They call themselves "doctor" and give medical advise to the unwitting public, despite having no relevant training. In this case, the guy had training as an electric engineer, but was commenting outside of his proven realm of expertise. However, he wasn't deceiving the public by representing himself as an engineer-for-hire, though, which I think makes it forgivable. I just found the free speech ruling to be over-broad.
- henryfjordan 7y agoThe courts very much got it right in this case. Joe Shmoe has health problems and will listen to a "doctor" but they don't have a bridge half-built in their backyard or an automotive manufacturing setup. There's just no risk to letting people say they are engineers, and the first amendment should only be infringed upon for good reason. Let's take this case as an example. Anyone can send a letter saying "The traffic light is too short; here's the math to prove it". Saying "I'm an engineer" might help you get that letter noticed, but it would almost certainly be illegal to reprogram the light without a professional engineer's sign-off independent of that letter no matter the person's qualifications. The state was never at risk of acting on his advice no matter how he represented himself. So why not let him say it?
- 7y ago
- naringas 7y agoworldwide? really?? Where I live (big urban metropolis) it's completely normal and commonplace for at least 1 or 2 cars (and sometimes up to 3 or 4 cars) to pass through after the signal turned red. It seems drivers consider the yellow light to be pretty much the same as the green light. the worse the intersection, the more it happens.
- dasbaumwolltier 7y agoIn Austria the green light blinks four tones before our goes to yellow and then after two seconds or goes to red.
- mrtweetyhack 7y agoFined for breathing O2 without a license
- mooneater 7y agoWhy should the transitions be a surprise? The lights should blink in a simple accelerating pattern used to signal impending transition. Then everyone knows how much time remains.
- gorgoiler 7y agoTraffic lights are one of those bits of industrial design that you really don’t mess around with. If you’d like a good old fashioned website to go with your coffee break, and you are now or would like to become interested in everything one could possibly need to know about British traffic lights, may I thoroughly recommend beno’s site to you?: http://beno.uk/trafficlight/ http://beno.uk/trafficlight/
- cr0sh 7y agoWe have the technology today to do this right - make the green and yellow lights have a countdown number, or blink slowly then quicker as time gets shorter (not sure if that might cause a person to have a seizure though for those prone?) The problem is people don't know how long the green then yellow really is, nor when it is about to change from yellow to red. I've been using crosswalk countdowns where they're available, but they aren't always reliable in my city (Phoenix). Sometimes, it will hit zero - and the light will stay green. But most of the time, when it hits zero, it will go from green to yellow, then you have roughly 3 seconds left.
- krustyburger 7y agoThe time is also variable by location, even between proximate American cities. For instance, the yellows in Los Angeles seem to be substantially briefer than the ones in San Diego or Orange County.
- bgorman 7y agoEven worse, Chicago intentionally reduced yellow light times to increase the rate of traffic tickets to generate additional revenue.
- leetcrew 7y ago> But most of the time, when it hits zero, it will go from green to yellow, then you have roughly 3 seconds left. it depends a lot on the speed limit, at least where I live. the yellow light usually lasts a lot longer on a 45 mph road than a quiet 20 mph street. I think having a countdown on the green light would be very helpful, but I worry that a countdown on the yellow light could lead to people cutting the red light even closer. what I would really like to see in the US is a yellow light before the green so I know when it's time to put the car in gear. of course, this could also worsen the "drag strip" effect.
- elif 7y agoIn Atlanta, where yellow means "hurry up" and red means "ok go if traffic is still moving" I am not confident that longer yellows will result in higher safety. Most accidents i've witnessed have been rear endings where a driver was not from Atlanta and stopped at a yellow.
- amluto 7y agoJarlström’s website is http://redflex.jarlstrom.com/ http://redflex.jarlstrom.com/ and his report (long PDF) is http://www.jarlstrom.com/PDF/Exhibit_1_FINAL_An_investigation_of_the_ITE_formula_and_its_use_R14.pdf http://www.jarlstrom.com/PDF/Exhibit_1_FINAL_An_investigatio...
- RaceWon 7y agoGood for him. My first street accident happened when I was 16 (two years before I started street racing--which btw is very dangerous, and for sure I don't advocate for it. Street racing is irresponsible, and street cars are sooo much flimsier than race cars, it's not even funny). I was in the Bronx (it was not legal for me to drive there at 16 btw) at an intersection crossing Mosholu Parkway. I was Not speeding, I was a novice driver--I looked up at light, it was green; when I crossed the intersection I was T-Boned by another car. Thankfully everyone was ok. Back then, in certain areas of the Bronx and unbeknownst to me, there were traffic lights that only had two bulbs; one was green, one was red. There was No yellow light--the green and red lights would come on simultaneously which denoted "yellow". That almost killed us. I took that as a good lesson a few months later as I started down the path of becoming a racer, And I follow this Rule assiduously to this day (to be clear;I no longer street race But I am still Extra careful on unknown roads); make sure you KNOW the road you are on before you drive fast on it. And TBH in my street racing days I would even take a drive by first to make sure there was no construction, broken water mains, ice or whatever happening... it's one of the main reasons I'm still alive.
- duxup 7y agoMy title says "software engineer"... would that violate some engineer title law?
- aaron695 7y agoThis article is misleading. I think the Register had an important place on the internet 10 years ago, but now it's just a low quality narky rag. Which it always was, just this void is full now. "Together, the Järlströms videotaped hours of footage intended to measure the length of the yellow light timings in Beaverton. They discovered that almost all of them were shorter than the amount of time required by law." https://www.significancemagazine.com/2-uncategorised/597-the-curious-case-of-mats-jaerlstroem https://www.significancemagazine.com/2-uncategorised/597-the...
- Causality1 7y ago>Even a small timing increase would help – the automatically generated ticket in this case was issued 0.12 seconds after the light turned red. The fact tickets were issued on the light turning red rather than the opposing light turning green should tell you all you need to know about whether this is intended to increase road safety or generate revenue.
- dawnerd 7y agoI live in Beaverton and can tell you that poorly timed intersections are pretty standard - really the entire valley for that matter.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoLonger yellow lights are more dangerous! It should be a signal to stop -- but if long enough, it becomes a signal to "speed up and hurry through." Amsterdam has very short yellow lights, but the result is that when you see yellow, you stop.
- kurthr 7y agoIn California (I don't know Oregon) the law is that you can't enter an intersection under red. Unless you have countdown timers (or a good orthogonal view), you don't know when a light will turn red. The yellow, then, should be long enough for you to safely exit the intersection (under congestion laws you usually are not allowed to enter an intersection if there is not room for you to exit it) assuming the other direction turns green (very shortly) after red. An alternative safe solution would be to extend the time between red and opposing green (non-overlap) and keep yellows shorter. Frankly, it's strange to me that even 0.12 sec was not enough, if the camera was only focused on the entry into the intersection. My guess is that it was shooting rear plates in the intersection, and catching turning cars (to maximize revenue)... Of course there are states where entering under a yellow is prohibited, but then we've legislated Pi to be 3 too. Now, I have also seen Bostonians jump off the line before a light turned green and that would certainly have me stomping my brakes into a stale yellow, but I'm not sure it's safer.
- NightlyDev 7y ago"entering under a yellow is prohibited" What dumbasses came up with that rule? Isn't the whole point of the yellow light to signal that it will turn red soon, and that people have to make a choice? So if you drive up to a green light then you have to stop, wait for the red light and then drive when it turns green again to ensure that you're not running a yellow light.
- tom_mellior 7y agoAround here (Europe) the meaning of yellow is "stop and don't enter", almost equivalently to red. The only difference is that if at the moment the light turns red you are so close and so fast that you cannot stop safely, then you can continue. So you have to make a decision, but it's not really a "choice". In practice yellow phases are too long and taken by many as a signal to speed up and speed through. I don't think police enforce the rules here, but this is clearly prohibited.