New Audis help you time traffic lights
I've heard about this before and have been waiting for this. Badly needed in North America, as we lack roundabouts and always end up getting stuck at signal lights, many of which lack smart traffic sensors due to municipal budget constraints. This would be a significant boost in fleet efficiency, if widely adopted.
Audi's New Tech Tells You When Traffic Lights Will Go Green Quote:
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I've heard some lights have countdown timers - useful I guess if you don't have start-stop technology and want to know whether it is worth turning your engine off, and being able to restart without becoming a road block.
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Yea I was thinking that, what's wrong with timers like they have in Japan, Russia etc? It wont make a big difference, if people can see they've got 3 seconds left until the light goes red, they're still going to boot it anyway, and having a mini countdown on your dash will encourage revving engines and racing other drivers. Fail.
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Seems like an interesting widget but if the STUPID people in charge would set the proper timing interval to the lights that would seem a better overall solution. Downtown Houston has had going on 3 decades of certain streets where the lights are out of sequence. You can drive 22mph and go for blocks but will never get through certain intersections. Then repeat until the other set of mis-timed lights.
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Awesome technology! This is exciting information.
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We also can't forget the 63.814% of drivers who even with this technology will still zoom to the next light and pull 2.4G's braking because they only ever drive that way.
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Even more reason to implement an instantaneous "cost per mile" or "cost per minute" reading on the dash for idiots like that, they will soon adjust thier driving once the figures go from green to red ;)
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After driving here for 50 years I know the lights as well as the potholes. Passed one Clown at 5 in a row, coasting with the engine off. It was fortunate one lane was still clear. Every day I hear an engine screaming as the Dummus races to another red light, while I coast to the future green and moving traffic. Did a 2 hill coast from a 45 mph zone down to 25 going past William&Mary College today. Hit 111 mpg for a very short period of time.
One time I drove through 64 lights without stopping, a distance of 35 miles. Didn't happen very often, but it was great when it did, especially in a metropolitan area of well over 1 million residents. |
Update:
Audi launches traffic light timing system in Las Vegas - Autoblog Quote:
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Is this part of the Audi system similar to Onstar that people might be paying for already? If not I imagine the cost would be far more than the savings. And as many have said, you can pretty much do it yourself if you travel the same routes and pay attention.
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