4 ms·

This. When they changed the timing of my usual intersection it caught me by surprise (and just entering the intersection on when it turned red). Thankfully no o

This. When they changed the timing of my usual intersection it caught me by surprise (and just entering the intersection on when it turned red). Thankfully no one on the cross street was trigger happy, but I can anecdotally attest that I was accustomed to a much longer yellow and behaved accordingly. I do believe that's why most accidents occur close to home, we develop expectations and operate on them, blindsided when conditions change without warning. But... to play devil's advocate, it's hard to develop expectations from a dynamic system, as it's operation is constantly changing/adapting to conditions.

zonkerdonker 3y ago
Was there a new red light camera set up at the intersection recently? The city-contracted companies in charge of the cameras alter the yellow light duration to increase ticket revenue supposedly
- DistractionRect 3y ago
  Nope. There are cameras, but that's presumably for license plate tracking. It's been nearly a month, so I can comfortably say it's not a red light camera.
rbanffy 3y ago
> no one on the cross street was trigger happy A green light is by no means a permission to blindly accelerate. This is something that needs to be hammered in during driving lessons.
nuancebydefault 3y ago
Anything that changes needs adaption by its users, especially for frequently used (hence nearby in this case) mechanisms. There will be accidents in the short term but I'm pretty convinced in the medium to long run, things will get safer because you don't tend to shortcut/bypass a well optimized system as much as a dumb system. For example when it is red at night and you see noone is coming from other directions, you might get tempted to break the rules. Similarly, in my home town quite a few people got killed in their cars by a train because of the long 'no train passes while red' time. In the end they solved the problem the opportunistic/expensive way: build 3 very expensive bridges. It would have made more sense to make the signal control electronics a bit smarter instead.

zonkerdonker 3y ago

Was there a new red light camera set up at the intersection recently? The city-contracted companies in charge of the cameras alter the yellow light duration to increase ticket revenue supposedly

DistractionRect 3y ago
Nope. There are cameras, but that's presumably for license plate tracking. It's been nearly a month, so I can comfortably say it's not a red light camera.

rbanffy 3y ago

> no one on the cross street was trigger happy A green light is by no means a permission to blindly accelerate. This is something that needs to be hammered in during driving lessons.

nuancebydefault 3y ago

Anything that changes needs adaption by its users, especially for frequently used (hence nearby in this case) mechanisms. There will be accidents in the short term but I'm pretty convinced in the medium to long run, things will get safer because you don't tend to shortcut/bypass a well optimized system as much as a dumb system. For example when it is red at night and you see noone is coming from other directions, you might get tempted to break the rules. Similarly, in my home town quite a few people got killed in their cars by a train because of the long 'no train passes while red' time. In the end they solved the problem the opportunistic/expensive way: build 3 very expensive bridges. It would have made more sense to make the signal control electronics a bit smarter instead.