Midwest Seeing Red Over 'Green' Traffic Lights 839
theodp writes "Many municipalities have switched to LED traffic signals because they burn brighter, last longer and use 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs. But they also emit less heat, meaning they sometimes have trouble melting snow, causing problems across the Midwest. In Wisconsin, snow blanketed LED traffic lights in some towns, leading to crashes at intersections where drivers weren't sure whether to stop or go. The unintended consequences of the green technology were also identified as a 'contributing factor' in the death of an Illinois woman hit by a driver who blamed the snow-covered energy-efficient signal for giving the appearance of a normal green light instead of a left-turn signal. 'We can remove the snow with heat, but the cost of doing that in terms of energy use has not brought any enthusiasm from cities and states that buy these signals,' said the CEO of an LED traffic-signal manufacturer. 'They'd like to be able to take away this issue, but they don't want to spend the money and lose the savings.' In the meantime, some towns are addressing sporadic problems by dispatching crews to remove snow or ice from signals using poles, brooms, and heating devices." We were discussing these recently at the office — several folks in the building are red/green color blind and different street lights are differently distinguishable.
Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh that's right... we do! If you get to an intersection and the light isn't working or isn't visible, you treat it like a four-way stop.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought of this, but in the snow cover situation, only one side thinks it's a four way stop. You'd have to have a "snow sensor" and shut down all 4 sides of the light for that to work.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Insightful)
Or have a snow-sensor and kick on a small heating device...
Sure, you are using more N-R-G by creating the heat to do it with so the technology is less green, but even this southern non-snow savvy guy realizes that using *some* N-R-G during a few months of the year to de-ice/melt/whatever is better than creating waste heat with inefficient lighting 24/7/365
Besides, what is the "green" cost of a car accident where oil, gas, battery acid, etc. may be spilled, as well as emergency vehicles cranking up and running to the scene, etc?
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Heck, even a manually switched heat function would be sufficient. A cop or city employee could turn it on whenever the light seems like it's blocked.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:4, Insightful)
Or have a snow-sensor and kick on a small heating device...
Sure, you are using more N-R-G by creating the heat to do it with so the technology is less green, but even this southern non-snow savvy guy realizes that using *some* N-R-G during a few months of the year to de-ice/melt/whatever is better than creating waste heat with inefficient lighting 24/7/365
Besides, what is the "green" cost of a car accident where oil, gas, battery acid, etc. may be spilled, as well as emergency vehicles cranking up and running to the scene, etc?
That's the best suggestion. And it's trivial, extremely cheap technology. Outdoor surveillance cameras have used it for years - some even with dehumidifier devices as well.
And the beauty is, even when the heater is on, it will still use less energy than the incandescent light, since it only needs to heat the lenses to a certain level over freezing temperature. So, I'd expect, even with the heaters on, there should be a decent savings in electric costs.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Informative)
I'm guessing you haven't experienced driving sleet or a blizzard or any other midwest-style winter weather, when the wind gets blowing it will pack snow anywhere and everywhere.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:4, Informative)
I live in the midwest. Snow isn't just snow 99% of the time. If the snow starts to melt on the way down, you get a very wet snow that packs tighter than light powder does. Sometimes you get tiny frozen flakes that don't stick to each other, and others, they clump together into giant snowflakes. Freezing rain doesn't have flakes. So it's pretty easy to tell the difference.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Insightful)
They could just install roundabouts.
Or they could just ignore the bullshit attempt to weasel out of a criminal manslaughter charge.
The guy was driving way too fast in traffic in extreme weather. He killed someone because he was in a hurry.
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Well from what I've seen in the news, etc, if the hurricane levels your house and it gets covered with debris, then yes.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:4, Informative)
Well, in New England, they actually have those big red lights on top that flash when the other lights are coated with snow.
Basically, if the weather is bad, then all intersections turn into 4-way stops and those lights take over. I'm surprised that that's not more common.
Re:See what the expert says... (Score:5, Informative)
> The Inuits (you know, the guys whom entire daily universe is either Snow or Ice...) have over a hundred words just for snow.
Not really. That's an urban legend.
See
http://www.mendosa.com/snow.html [mendosa.com]
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow [wikipedia.org]
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Informative)
That doesn't help with snow-related icing, because snow doesn't "fall" like rain (more surface area, less density and so it's much more susceptible to slight wind gusts in any direction). Generally, it doesn't even "stick" in place unless you have either a barely-frozen "wet" snow in just-barely-freezing temps, or a surface with "just enough" heat to get the initial under-ice layer going.
There's plenty enough ambient blowing during a good snowstorm, and these LED's are putting out "just enough" heat that the first few snowflakes go through a slight partial melt and stick themselves on good and tight. Chicago Tribune has a great photo showing you what happened [chicagotribune.com] to the "blinders with no bottom" approach. Even if you squared off the hoods, you'd still have this issue.
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The truly bottomless hoods are in Cicero and Washington.
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Every image people are showing here shows the snow building up from the bottom towards the top. If snow was so easy to stick to such a surface, we should see at least SOME accumulation on the top of the lens, which isn't the case, unless the bottom of the lens is already full of snow/ice.
Everyone here is basing their logic on a guess. There is no light casing without this lip in any of the sample images from TFA or posted here otherwise. They simply assume that the heat from the old style lights is the only
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Interesting)
As it is, this seems to be a story (depending on whether the fuckup occurred on the engineering side or the buying side) either of shortsighted buyers opting for false economies, or lazy engineers failing to think through likely failure modes.
Electrical heating of transparent enclosures(either by a resistive film applied directly to the enclosure surface, or just a heater inside the enclosure) is not exactly rocket surgery. We've been doing it for decades in car windows, among other places. Nor is measuring the opacity of a given surface all that difficult. There are a number of robust approaches you could employ(optointerrupters around the rim testing for interruptions caused by material on the lens, photosensors scattered in the LED matrix, measuring intensity of light reflected back to the emitter array, etc.) These would modestly increase emitter and energy costs; but would easily eliminate the problem, and still come in cheaper than the incandescents.
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These people saying just slope the lens and don't give it a floor have obviously never seen perfectly vertical and flat road signs that are totally plastered over by snow and thus unreadable. Snow can stick like a bastard.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Insightful)
In the end it would probably be cheaper to just stick with the "old style" incandescent traffic lights that don't need fancy "snow melters" or snow crews to clear them.
I don't see what's so fancy about a heating element. It's not really that high tech, after all. And the cost isn't the only factor; we do have global warming to deal with.
All this "green" tech is fine and dandy, until some adverse weather shows up. Then you're wishing you still had that SUV...
Not me. More people die in SUVs per passenger mile than any other vehicle, and when it's slick out is when it's the most dangerous. SUVs don't have the crumple zones of other vehicles, and handle like drunken cows. Their weight makes them harder to stop, especially when it's slick. If you're out in the country you may need four wheel drive, but a four wheel drive sedan is more effective than a four wheel drive SUV, and far more effective than a two wheel drive SUV. A four wheel drive minivan would be the best bet, as it can hold as many (or often more) passengers as an SUV, but is the safest vehicle on the road.
You feel safer in an SUV, but the opposite is true -- you're in far more danger than any other kind of passenger vehicle. I can't imagine why anyone would transport their children in one of these dangerous, wasteful cars.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Insightful)
All this "green" tech is fine and dandy, until some adverse weather shows up. Then you're wishing you still had that SUV, or proper stoplight bulbs, or whatever it was that you gave up to save 2 cents with "green" tech.
What? Heavy SUVs are extremely bad choices for winter weather. Light cars with AWD are vastly superior.
If you want to dump 80% energy savings because it's less convenient during blizzard conditions, I'm fairly sure you don't understand what ROI means.
The solution to high energy costs is not always conservation, often it's to create a larger supply
If you think it's cheaper to build a power plant than to purchase LED stoplights with some sort of simple heating element, I'm also fairly sure you're delusional.
AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Ahh. Your sig explains everything...
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:4, Interesting)
Building a new power plant will make electricity cheaper? I do not see that happening in the short term. Power plants are not cheap to build.
Now that the problem of sticky snow has been discovered the obvious solution is to add heaters to the traffic lights that can be turned on in winter. The minor extra cost of a heater just means the pay back on using LED's and saving electricity takes a few more months.
Having an SUV does not make it easier to drive in the snow. Having good snow tires does, having chains if required, and learning to drive in snow: no sudden movements, don't stop when going up hill, stay way back from the car in front, and slow down well before corners. Take your foot OFF the brake if skidding so you can steer.
We only get big snowfalls every 2 or 3 years so most drivers here are really bad at driving in snow. SUV's and 4 wheel drives make up 80% of vehicles in ditches due to the "over confidence factor". It seems many people with 4 wheel drives don't realize ALL cars have 4 wheel brakes.
Going green generally saves money, and makes your life easier.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Funny)
Of course. You will obviously save more energy by using a heat-generating bulb 24/7/365 than adding a heat source which kicks on when needed (either by direct control or by a sensor).
This is why I took out all my light switches and just leave my lights and appliances running all the time. It saves me time and energy! Plus, with all those lights on, I run my heater less in the winter! Doubleplusgood savings!
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How does the cost of potential lost human lives figure into this equation? I mean, due to them not working, the wrecks increase...possibly risking life and limb of taxpayers.
Human lives have a value assigned to them by the Department of Transportation. Last I heard it was $5,800,000 per year [dot.gov]. That meant that if some hazardous road condition caused someone to die, they would change it if it cost less than $5.8M to do so. And it adds: if four people went off a cliff in one accident, and six people went off the same cliff in a different accident in the same year, they would put up guard rails, or rebuild the road, or whatever improvements it takes, up to $58 million.
By that lo
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Insightful)
It is one thing to update tech if it gives significant improvement in functionality, but, just doing it to be fashionably 'green' is not the way to do IMHO.
From the traffic manuals I've helped write, the LED traffic lights do indeed offer significantly improved functionality over incandescent lights in ways that are not related to "being green".
Actually, the "green" is a bluish color of green that makes it easier for people with color deficiency to tell from nearby white street lights (this is huge, being somewhat color blind myself - suppose it's raining at night and there are street lights near the stop light. For me, it's sometimes difficult to distinguish the green light from the nearby street light; only when it turns yellow and red can I tell which one belongs to the stop light. With the new ones, I have no problem at all.)
They're also made up of many LED elements per "light" so that when one inevitably burns out, most of the light still functions before a replacement can be done (say one of the green LEDs burns out - you still have several green LEDs working). With incandescent, when you lose red, you lose it completely. This improves safety for drivers and allows more flexibility in scheduling the work crews to replace the lights.
The LED lights are also brighter and more intense than the incandescent lights, making them more visible from farther way and in a wider range of ambient light conditions. (The incandescent lights don't do very well when the sun is directly behind you as you face a light - I think part of this is that the incandescent lights have a reflector behind the bulb, like a flashlight does - so the sunlight enters the lens from the front and then reflects back out. The LEDs don't have this reflector around the bulb).
Plus, the LED lights last significantly longer than the incandescent lights. You save money on the labor of replacing them - as well as reducing the safety risks to the work crews who have to go work in the street.
Of course, every new technology has unanticipated side effects, and the inability of the LED lights to melt off snow is one of them. But really, that's just an engineering problem that several people here have already suggested good solutions for.
In a similar vain, when I worked as a sysadmin at a university, we had a computer lab with 30 computers and we had the heat (old water pipes) permanently turned off because the monitors gave off enough heat to keep the room comfortable, even in winter. After we switched to LCD monitors, students started complaining that the lab was always too cold and we had to have maintenance come in and bring the heat back online. Likewise, an unintended consequence of a newer technology.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:4, Informative)
What do you do if only part of the lights were covered, especially if the parts covered are extensions such as no left-turn? I know it is much to ask, but as minimum, maybe you should Read The Fucking Summary.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Informative)
I believe that that sort of situation is adequately covered by this brief instructional video on the subject of driver training manuals [youtube.com].
Assuming that all cars are being driving by competent drivers who should be allowed behind the wheel of anything more dangerous than Mario Kart, how is it possible that one of them will see that the light is obscured, correctly treat the intersection as if it were a all-way stop, stop his or her vehicle, look around to see that the intersection is clear and then proceed through only when it is safe, only to be hit by an oncoming vehicle? Unless the vehicle in the oncoming 'Green' lane is either invisible or travelling at something close to the speed of light that can't happen unless one of the drivers has skipped an important step.
And in that case I'm going to have to let Robert Loggia explain where things started to go wrong.
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I agree, I haven't taken a written driving test in over 15 years. When I did take the test, one of the questions was (paraphrasing) "How often do you have to get your license replaced." What a ridiculous question (give me my license and I'll read the answer off of the front). I wonder what real question got crowded out by this irrelevant question (If it's not obvious, I missed the question).
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I half agree.
I think I favor less enforcement, and less laws overall. Most of the driving rules, in terms of real safety, are overly cautious
"Best Practice" guidelines at best. Speed limits are just ridiculous, in general. People are going to drive the speed they feel safe, regardless of what the stupid sign says. That speed is usually 10-15 MPH higher than the sign. Yearly safety inspections? I can see emissions checks every few years, or a safety check after 5 or so. However, regular safety inspection rea
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Most of the driving rules, in terms of real safety, are overly cautious. "Best Practice" guidelines at best
The driving rules are designed to protect drivers who obey the rules from other drivers who are obeying the rules, thus we're commanded on what side of the road to drive on, who goes first at a stop sign, what lanes you're allowed to turn from, when we're allowed to pass slow drivers, and so on.
The problem is that nothing but attentiveness and reaction time will protect people from drivers who are not
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Up to a point sure. However, you don't have to obey all of the rules 100%, or even CLOSE to it, to drive safely with other drivers who are obeying the rules, or attentitively breaking them like you are (which is what the vast majority of drivers do, NOBODY obeys ALL of the rules 100%)
I don't think we need more rules, most of them could be relaxed, and relaxed a lot. The only evidence that I need is that, as I said, the majority of drivers relax the rules and drive as such already. I do not believe that it m
You are very wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think we need more rules, most of them could be relaxed, and relaxed a lot. The only evidence that I need is that, as I said, the majority of drivers relax the rules and drive as such already. I do not believe that it makes sense to set the bar for proper driving above what the average person is actually going to do on the road.
~40K dead Americans per year say you are wrong.
The real problem is NOT the people breaking the rules on purpose. They generally are paying attention, know the rules, and are ready to make adjustments. The problem is the people who either don't know the rules in the first place, or aren't paying attention. There is a HUGE difference between rolling through a stop sign at an empty intersection with unobstructed visibility, and rolling through without even looking because you were playing with your radio.
After 20 years of studying drivers and how accidents happen, I can tell you that you are wrong about them paying attention.
90+% of drivers are operating on autopilot. They are not paying attention and are just letting the autopilot handle everything. This is one reason that they take driving for granted and feel just fine texting or talking on a cell phone while running other drivers off the road. Most crashes happen when 2 inattentive drivers hit each other. If you have an inattentive drive and someone who is actually driving the driver avoids the person who is oblivious to the situation.
Who cares if I only bring my car down to second gear at stop signs? I am ready to stop. If there's another car who has right of way, I stop. If there's no other cars, I am slow enough to stop if I need to because someone else is blowing through, so no safety hazard is caused. If i have enough visibility to roll through at the speed that I am rolling through, and the situation isn't a dangerous one, then... how exactly does the rule make sense?
I care and so does anyone who avoids you hitting them because your "only dropping to 2nd gear for stop lights" becomes part of your autopilot and often you may not actually notice another car has already stopped at the intersection and is now proceeding to use their right of way when you blow the red/stop sign.
I have seen drivers (I hate to use this term for commuters who have somehow ended up behind the wheel and have no interest in teh art of driving) use this same argument and then drive and fail to notice other cars at intersections as they blow lights/signs. They still say that everything was clear and that there was no other traffic due to autopilot.
The advantage of your post is that it clarifies what the person who got killed did wrong. They went through an intersection while assuming other traffic would behave in a given way without even observing the traffic to see if this was likely. I really don't care if you have a green if it looks like an SUV coming up to a red and who will T bone you, is not slowing, don't just say "I have the right of way!" and head to your death. You will be in the right and just as dead as if you were not in the right.
If people cared about highway deaths we'd see a few things.
1. The news would report how many people died in the roads of their state the previous day and across the US.
2. Laws would begin to target bad drivers and not boogiemen like speeders and drunk drivers.
#2 sounds unbelievable so I should explain. When you are just as impaired using a cell phone as you are at the legal BAC level for DWI and only one of these has heavy legal ramifications... yeah, a boogieman has been created. Also if you research the criteria for a drunk driving crash you may be amazed at how a crash with no alcohol can still be classed as a drunk driving crash.
The police say that speed is the #1 cause of crashes. This is wrong. putting things where they do not belong is the #1 cause. If we wanted to reduce raod deaths the police would crack down on people rolling reds and stop signs, people commuting in the wrong lane, improper signal use, and other things which indicate bad drivers. Get the inattentive dummies off the road and watch the death rate plummet.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Funny)
He did - he went straight through just like anyone driving a Dodge RAM does.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, this doesn't just cover the light,it apparently also can make a signal appear to be something it is not.
This is a severe problem. If they were simply obscured, you are right, fairly easy to deal with. But if they appear to not be obscured, but the snow causes misinterpretation as apparently has happened, bad things will happen that are not the fault of the drivers, but the idiots who installed these systems without the manufacturers option for a heating element.
Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't blame the installers. Based on my experience, I would wager 100 bucks it was a voted in politician that made the decision, against the recommendations of professionals.
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against the recommendations of professionals.
Can you find anyone who was recommending against these bulbs before they were installed, or as they say, is hindsight 20/20? I wouldn't be surprised if nobody actually knew that the lightbulbs were why snow didn't stick to the streetlights, since that's the way they've always been (maybe there had been tests run with florescent bulbs previous to the LED bulbs?).
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One of my many angers when it comes to others and their lack of knowledge about traffic laws is this.
Luckily, where I live now they seem to understand the four-way stop law. However, in Indianapolis if a traffic light goes out everyone seems to think that the "larger road" has the right of way. Try to follow the law and you get flipped off almost instantly.
One of the most basic emergency rules and no one there can seem to remember it.
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I really hate the 4-way stop in the USA. In Europe there is no such thing as a 4-way stop, you have 2 stop signs in one direction and 2 yield signs in the other direction.
If 4 cars (or 2 or 3 for that matter) come to the intersection at the same time, who goes first? Unless you have a very precise clock you can't really figure out who goes first. The rules get really complicated at that point, you have to give priority to the right (2 cars), you have to give priority to the direction with the most cars (3 c
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Y'all have nothing on us.
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...and the light on top (vertical hang) or to the left (horizontal hang) is *red*. That's actually law too, IIRC.
whatever happened to being careful? (Score:4, Insightful)
idiot driver should be prosecuted since everyone knows the third light from the top is regular green and not a turn signal. i've seen intersections with broken lights before and people are very careful when they go and make sure the other guy is going to yield.
some people are always in a constant state of hurry and can't seem to wait a few seconds
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It's not always that they are in a hurry. It's often just a plain old sense of entitlement.
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It's not always that they are in a hurry. It's often just a plain old sense of entitlement.
It's not always that they are in a hurry. It's often just a plain old sense of selfish, anti-social arrogance.
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These are the same senses that dictate to them their importance in a merge as well.
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Are LED fixtures made to follow these same rules? On an LED light, the same light can easily be used to display both by simply not turning on all the LEDs.
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Bullshit! I would wager at least 25% of the LED lights I have seen have the third light as a combined left turn or straight green. LEDs permit that easily - just turn on the elements for the left turn, then all of them, when it goes from "left" to "green".
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It's apparently not an exclusive right of the US of A.
Re:whatever happened to being careful? (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of comment is harmful on many levels...
1) Being 'stupid' is subjective.
2) Classifying large groups of people as 'stupid' is divisive and elitist
3) Labeling this behavior as 'stupid' implies both an acceptance of the inability to change it AND an implicit protection from the consequences of their behaviors
If you really do think a portion of the 'US of A' is 'stupid', please do us all a favor and stop saying so. You're only perpetuating the problem when the truth is the vast majority of adults are 'smart' enough to operate an intersection correctly.
Good Advice (Score:5, Insightful)
In Wisconsin, snow blanketed LED traffic lights in some towns, leading to crashes at intersections where drivers weren't sure whether to stop or go
If you're not sure to stop or go, the answer is "stop". I can understand if it's dark and you don't see the traffic lights because they're covered with snow, but if the lights at the intersection aren't working, that doesn't mean the light is green. It means stop and go when it's safe to.
Re:Good Advice (Score:5, Funny)
God forbid someone spends an extra 10 seconds waiting. it will ruin their whole day
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duh (Score:2, Insightful)
why don't they just angle the lenses downwards with less of a hood? problem solved.
Re:duh (Score:4, Insightful)
why don't they just angle the lenses downwards with less of a hood? problem solved.
I'm going out on a limb here, but you probably don't live somewhere that gets a lot of snow. Don't get me wrong, I think your idea would work in a lot of scenarios but not all of them. Where I live, we get the odd blizzard that puts a thick layer of ice and snow on everything. The wind pushes sticky snow at seemingly impossible angles preventing you from making out any lights or signs.
Simple (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Simple (Score:4, Informative)
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Put a small heater in the traffic signal that turns on below 0C (32F).
Or better yet, wire the heater to one of these [amazon.com] and have someone drive around and turn them on when it snows.
Either way, if the municipalities don't solve the problem, they will get sued. How much does that cost?
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Sure, problem solved, but the summary points out why that's not happening:
We can remove the snow with heat, but the cost of doing that in terms of energy use has not brought any enthusiasm from cities and states that buy these signals,' said the CEO of an LED traffic-signal manufacturer.
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So, against a whole year of savings, they can't accept five or six days of artificial heating? It has to be all or nothing?
What are the addresses of these math deficient city managers, so that local engineers can visit them and slap them in the face with an intro thermodynamics book.
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Of course, they could always put a sloping cover above the signs so it doesn't get, well, covered in snow.
New design needed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe the lights need to take on a new form? What kind of problems would arise from coating each LED's sides with black paint (to replicate the duty of the indirect sun shades) and spacing the LEDs out so snow can pass through them? Or possibly shaping the LED or a cover as a cone shape so that it's harder to cover with snow?
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if you look at a cone straight on, it's still a circle. There are also several square LED traffic lights that's I've seen around.
Propaganda? (Score:5, Interesting)
I read this and I almost immediately thought "propaganda." Why? A appeal to fear based on a insignificant and easily fixable event, then attempting to tie the fear to larger political concepts. Fear change! Fear green! Equals death! Keep same! Same is warm! Same is reliable! Same is safe! You don't have to think about same!
Distinguish top from bottom (Score:4, Insightful)
Red/Green colorblindness is nothing new; that's why the lights are standardized to have green at the bottom and red at the top. If you can't distinguish red from green, you can at least distinguish top from bottom. Why is that not a perfectly acceptable solution?
Re:Distinguish top from bottom (Score:4, Informative)
But in the horizontal configuration the red light is always on the left and the gree light is always on the right. Same rules apply.
Tell that to (Score:2)
Tell that to the surviving members of Lisa Richter's family.
Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems like a simple solution would be a small heater incorporated into the LED lamp assembly that only turns on below a certain temperature. Better yet- perhaps a sensor could be used to detect if the lamp was covered, perhaps by reflectivity. This would probably still use a lot less electricity over the course of a year.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
The ones you see around Denver *are* designed differently.
The shield around the lights is open on the top, so that it funnels wind downwards and blows the snow off of the light. The ones in Illinois are not. The Colorado shields cost ~$30.
This isn't a case of LEDs being bad. Nor is it "greens run amuck". It's idiots run amuck.
The driver of the truck should be prosecuted. In every light cluster with turn arrows, the turn arrows are on the bottom. They are NOT the solid green. And being from Illinois, in Driver's Ed we were all taught that Green does not mean 'Go'. It means *proceed when the intersection is clear*. So, failure on several points by the driver of the truck.
Illinois needs to install the same snow shields that Colorado and other states have successfully done with their LED light installations.
We'd probably have them already, except we spent all our DOT money on 'Rod R. Blagojevich - Governor' signs.
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Only apply heat when there's snow on the light? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would the heaters have to use much energy? It sounds like they're not needed very often. You could automatically trigger them via external light/temperature sensors with some minimal processing or modify the red light camera software to trigger them. The only real downside is massively increasing the complexity of what is currently a very simple device.
A simpler answer might be to train people that they actually need to slow down if a traffic signal is not fully visible.
They bought the lights to save money... (Score:2)
...and not because they are green. Having to heat them to melt the snow will mean less savings, which may well mean they switch them back to incandescents. Not exactly rocket science. Ironic, but mostly simple economics.
I don't get the colorblind comment... (Score:2)
We were discussing these recently at the office — several folks in the building are red/green color blind and different street lights are differently distinguishable.
I had trouble parsing that sentence. Is the statement that the colorblind can tell the difference between LED's and bulbs? Because the non-colorblind can also.
Is the statement that the colorblind can tell the difference between the red and green lights? Because that's why they have a standard. The red one is always in one of two places. The green one is always opposite that one. Really, if they changed the lights to a pure white, they would still work for the non-colorblind.
So yeah, 'say what?'
Not a problem (Score:5, Funny)
My town mistakenly ordered IED lights. These remove their own snow.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"We used to dream of having IED lights!"
My town ordered IUD lights, and I can tell you there was much argument about their installation.
If ND doesn't have this problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in North Dakota, we've had these LED traffic lights for years, and I cannot remember the last time I saw one totally snowed up. The shields that curve over the top of the traffic lights here do an adequate job of keeping the snow from coating the signals - including during the 3-day blizzard we had last week (I had to drive in it each of those 3 days, so trust me - they worked).
If they're not working in other states, than either their storms are somehow worse than ND's, or they've cheaped out on the snow shields that go over the top of the lights. I know which one I'd put my money on...
Snow shields do work! (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in Oslo (Norway) we've had these LED lights for several years, and the snow shields have never (afaik) had any problems keeping the lights visible, even during our regular snow storms.
Here's a detail from a photo of a local junction which I took for my wife. She is responsible for making public transport in the region as efficient as possible, which includes giving priority to buses and trams in all intersections:
http://tmsw.no/trafikklys.jpg [tmsw.no]
Terje
PS. Here's a link to the least useful program I have eve
They're balking about the price?! (Score:3, Informative)
Come on, a thermister set for 32 degrees F and a 5 watt resistor would probably do the trick. How much could that really cost extra?
Radioisotopes (Score:4, Funny)
Color-blindness and traffic lights... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's ignore the positional arguments for now - yes, everyone SHOULD know that the light on top is the red one, etc. But it is obviously not the case. Some people are just not that smart.
I have always understood that the lenses which used to give lights their color, in the green case, was not really a pure green but had a tint of blue. This allowed those with green colorblindness to still distinguish the light from the others. However, it is VERY noticeable that the green LED lights are NOT the same color as the old lenses, but appear to be more of a true green. Is there a reason why they weren't made the same blue/green? Or did someone just forget?
It may be possible, if they can't produce a blended LED, to simply include some blue LEDs in the matrix as well, which should to most of us produce a blended color.
I have seen some red LED lights include a white flashing ring or center dot - this really brings attention to the light. Totally non-standard that I have seen though.
With the LED matrix lights, it is now quite simple to create shaped lights. A distinctive square or rectangular (would likely require redesigned light fixtures) design on the stop light would make it more distinguishable.
I remember the horizontal fixtures in Quebec - but I remember that the stop lights appeared on BOTH ends of the fixture - that is there were TWO lights on the outside when STOP.
What needs to happen now is standards for future replacements and new installations so that they can be ready in the future.
Uuum, WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn’t that why the simple and effective solution called a “roof” was invented for?
Just put a box around it, with a flat, transparent, 45 downwards facing surface in front of the light. There you go. Problem solved.
You can even coat it with a water-repelling substance, to prevent fogging.
Gravity will do the rest.
Oh wait... they don’t believe in gravity, in the midwest, right? ^^
gas (Score:3, Funny)
all of our lights should be gas powered with mechanical shutters to change which lamp is visible. And we could have a small booth with each intersection that housed a person to operate the signals, giving them employment and shelter in winter. As for the LED lights, a bit of research would have helped, it's not as if the entire world suddenly woke up to find LEDs instead of incandescent globe, offs!
Re:Solvable. (Score:5, Informative)
In the Illinois case, the green arrow was obscured just enough to appear to be a full green.
Re: (Score:2)
Not to mention, usually only one side is obscured, so how are you to know when it's your turn to go if the light it completely covered? Sometimes the intersection is clear because the light cycles through a side that has no cars so it may appear that it's your turn.
How do you cover an arrow... (Score:2)
http://www.worldofstock.com/slides/MES2459.jpg [worldofstock.com] ...to make it appear as a circle, exactly?
Unless the driver was saying "you know, I couldn't make out the shape at all.. it just looked like -a- green light, and that was good enough for me", of course.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I am in Wisconsin and saw the partially obscured arrows. It did look like a full green. I knew the intersection, slowed down and could yield. The people who are unfamiliar with the intersection might never have realized it.
Obscured is a misleading description. Better description is "diffused" kind of like a quarter moon behind thin clouds still can look full.
Re: (Score:2)
First part is the correct answer. The second part is really stupid. Ask yourself: Where does wasted energy go?
The answer is that waste energy is heat. Light bulbs are 100% efficient when the heat biproduct is also used.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Glass? Does this glass differ from the type of glass found on cars because I can assure you that snow sticks to glass.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:No issues in Canada (Score:5, Funny)
"I've never seen one obstructed by snow."
Yea, because you couldn't see it.
Re: (Score:2)
From the summary:
'We can remove the snow with heat, but the cost of doing that in terms of energy use has not brought any enthusiasm from cities and states that buy these signals,' said the CEO of an LED traffic-signal manufacturer.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
An article said changing to LED lights in an intersection brought about 100$ a month economy in electricity costs, for that particular intersection.
It would cost several hundred dollars to make changes to the semaphores (like changing the regular glass to glass with wire inside that would heat it and have sensors that would turn on the heating elements only when needed). Some towns only get that heavy snow once every few years or for just a few days each winter so when you think about it, it's cheaper to ju
Re:heating element (Score:4, Interesting)
I was up in Fargo, ND visiting family for Christmas (yah shoor ya betcha) and a traffic light was out on a 6-lane intersection. Guess what? Everyone was calmly proceeding as if it was a 4-way stop. No drama, no retardation.
This whole thing is a non-problem. It's just that lazy journalists love it because it's "irony". It's not really ironic unless you're Alanis Morissette, but it makes for an easy, shitty space filler. Notice how in that story the SIGN is also covered in snow? ZOMG! We need heated road signs! Woe is me! Signs can sometimes become obscured by snow, the horror! The HORROR!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We need heated road signs!
Ever wondered why stop signs are octogonal in shape?
The answer: being the most important traffic sign, they have this unique shape so that they are distinguishable from all other signs even when covered in snow.
So snow covered signs are a real concern, and yes, designers did think about the issue!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
the shroud is there to prevent mistakenly thinking you have green when the lane going in a different direction has the green. The top/bottom of those is utterly useless, though. The whole thing should be a flat surface aside from the blinders on the side.
and yet...
1) that sign is still completely covered and unreadable due to snow
2) No solution is offered for the sign
3) Nobody even mentions the sign. Without the information from the sign, people are expected to just practice safe dri
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
True, but I don't think this was nearly as much about "going green" as it was "saving green". Local govt. all over the country has been proving time and time again that their *true* primary goal revolves around generating revenue and cutting costs, vs. motorist safety. Look at all the red light cameras they've been installing. Studies keep showing they cause MORE rear-end collisions, and they certainly create a number of legal and ethical questions. (EG. Most police departments have an internal policy
Re:Why is colorblindness mentioned? (Score:4, Interesting)
Red-green colorblindness should not affect the ability of a person to correctly observe a traffic light.
Under ideal conditions, you're correct. (But this whole article is about non-ideal conditions)
I have some color blindness and I can describe the problem I have. When it's raining and at night, it's difficult for me to tell a green light (non LED) from a nearby street illumination light (from a distance). I know that sounds crazy. Because it's dark, it's hard to see the rectangular enclosure, so I can't tell by the green-light's position. Only after it's changed to yellow then red can I tell which light was the illumination light and which was the green light.
And I can't just assume that lack of a yellow or red means I have the green, because it might be burned out.
The new LED lights use a different color of green that has a higher blue component that makes them completely obvious. Plus the LED lights are more intense than the other lights. This may be due to the light from an LED being a smaller set of frequencies (or a single one?) compared to a filtered incandescent, though I really don't know much about the physics of LEDs.
So, I expect it was mentioned in this context because when it's dark it's harder to tell the position of the green light against the dark enclosure, especially when there are nearby white lights. And the blue-green used makes them easier to see. At least that's my experience.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's why stop signs are the only road sign that's hexagonal in shape. So even if it is covered in snow, you should still be able to recognize it as a stop sign.