Can reprogrammed traffic lights save gas?
 

How many times a day do you approach a traffic light and have it jump straight to yellow then right to red and you are in a panic from being just to close to stop? I bet you end up running it, that is if you’re in the front of all the the cars with no one in front of you.

I have a simple idea. What if the green light was programmed to start blinking ten seconds before it turned yellow? This now tells drivers that the green light has gone stale and to ease off the gas pedal and coast to a stop.

Drivers won’t run as many red lights causing accidents and fuel economy increases.

So if you feel like this would work, how do we get the traffic engineers to program the traffic signals around the country?

because a blinking green indicating that it will turn yellow soon will cause most drivers to speed up.

Plenty of countries have this method, where the green light is actually a digital timer that counts down how long the light will be green, and visa versa when it's red. It provokes people to leave a red light early when it's in the last 5-10 seconds, and encourages people to speed up when the green timer is counting down from 10 too. Awful idea.

From what I understand, roundabouts could replace a large percentage of traffic lights. It may be cost prohibitive in the short run in the US. We don't plan ahead more than 10 minutes here.

Kevin

The UK is all roundabouts and now they are having to fit traffic lights to the busy ones to give every route a chance.

Very common behavior around here that's why they removed the blinking green.

OMG. Traffic lights inside roundabouts. Sounds like Washington DC. Light turns green, go 100 feet, stop again. Take Dupont Circle for example here. There's an inner and an outer circle, separated by a median, and a tunnel that goes under the circle. Leads to confusing traffic in and around the circle, and there's traffic lights at every entrance/exit.

LMAO, A microcosm of DC if I ever saw one. Too many people in vehicles trying to occupy the same space and the solution is more bureaucracy which in turns gums up the works even more until everything comes to a screeching halt. I love it!

Our little town of less than 30K people got some guv money to put in a couple roundabouts and some greenery. I've been through one of them several times and there's never been another car in sight, literally. Money well spent...

Kevin

https://badges.fuelly.com/images/sig-us/1061828.png

The town I stay in (50K population) has dozens of roundabouts and they are great. Traffic flows freely (unless you get some little old lady who won't move out if there is a car within 100 yards). They even build roads with roundabouts before they build the side streets.
Mini roundabouts are a big thing. They put a small, low roundabout at any junction and though you can (and sometimes have to) put your wheels on it, it is legally and universally treated as a big roundabout full of trees and shrubs would.

I love the way Americans are talking about roundabouts like they are a new invention, and making out they're as complicated as programming a space shuttle haha. Seriously guys, you stop, and if there's nothing coming on the left, you go...it's litterly that easy.