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Audi detects when lights will turn red
- trickjarrett 18y agoThe Audi turning the light for you will never fly in large markets. Too much of an opportunity for abuse. And this dude made a William Hung reference? I don't know if I should laugh or cry!
- jcl 18y agoHow is it an abuse? Many lights already have sensors in the road that will change the lights for you if there is no one waiting to cross.
- trickjarrett 18y agoIt isn't an abuse currently. I meant allowing a censor controlled by a person to provide input into a stop light is troublesome. Just like people who get ahold of the light emergency vehicles can use in certain metro areas, having another way to try and hack the light is likely to cause problems.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- jcl 18y agoI think he's referring to this line in the article: "Even better, if there's no oncoming traffic, your Audi can make the light turn green." I'm pointing out that there are lights that already do this for regular cars.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- denglish 18y agoMy first thought was - yeah, that'll create a lot more speeders! But actually on reflection I think there are a couple of very good side effects to come out of this: 1. The most dangerous time to speed / stop heavily is in or very near an intersection. Giving drivers more warning may actually encourage them to use the actual intersections more safely. 2. Traffic is considerably congested by the stop start nature of intersections. If this helps to more gently control cars passing through in both directions, it may considerably speed up everyone's trips (even those that slow rather than speed - keeping in mind they can then still hit the green light at say 2/3 speed rather than zero.)
- gojomo 18y agoRather than having the traffic lights sending invisible signals to special receivers, they could just have digital countdown timers, visible from a distance, on both red and green lights. I've saw a bunch of these in China, but not yet in the USA. (The closest I've seen commonly in the USA are the countdown timers, instead of blinking lights, on more recent pedestrian crosswalk signals.)
- ars 18y agoSo audi spent who knows how much on a complicated solution - when there already is a perfectly workable simple one. Reminds me of the pen vs pencil joke about nasa vs russia.
- skalpelis 18y agoThe countdown counters are about the same size as one of the lights whereas to be able to comfortably see the counter from a moving vehicle from at least 100 meters, the numbers on the counter should be humongous. After all, the main idea behind this is knowing beforehand (long enough beforehand) what the light will turn into and when so that you can accelerate just enough to make it through just before the green ends, or decelerate enough to make it to the intersection just as the green comes on so that there's no need for braking, stopping and starting again.
- gojomo 18y agoI found them quite large and readable from long distances. Here's an image I found online of a countdown traffic light in Shenzhen, China: http://bbeled.com/project/images/dongguan.JPG http://bbeled.com/project/images/dongguan.JPG And even Thailand: http://bbeled.com/project/images/taiguo.JPG http://bbeled.com/project/images/taiguo.JPG Come on, USA, let's get with the 21st century already! (Photos in context at http://bbeled.com/project.htm http://bbeled.com/project.htm , click the second 'Traffic signal light' tab.)
- ash 18y agoMandatory link about a space pen: http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
- pbnaidu 18y agoHow about the traffic green light displaying seconds before it's going to turn yellow? I think this is feasible because of LEDs usage in the traffic lights.
- jcromartie 18y agoI have had an idea like this for a long time now. The fuel savings from rarely having to stop would be enormous.