Screw all the talk about self driving cars and AGI, can we start with smart traffic lights?

He did do something; he started a thread! That will fix it.

Find something to do while you are waiting at the stoplight.

Sent from my iPhone.

The sensors are for lights on side streets that have very little traffic and have a long delay. You have to drive up onto the sensor to get the light to change. Otherwise, the light will stay red for the side street. Rojo wants to have a sensor that detects a lack of traffic on the busy street and shorten the cycle for that street in favor of the less traveled side street.

That kind of technology is really not out there, but is part of what some will hope to be infrastructure for future autonomous vehicles. Truly autonomous vehicles (i.e. driver can fall asleep in the back seat and auto pilot does everything) will need to be able to communicate with each other and with traffic signals. The idea is to be able to seamlessly move autonomous vehicles through intersections without having to have one direction stop and wait while the other direction has a green light. Vehicles would see each other coming and slow down or speed up just enough to be able to go through the intersection without stopping. That would eliminate vehicle idling and save a lot of energy while reducing commute times. That is the real future AI sh#t (and is probably a few decades away despite AI proponents' predictions that everything will be possible in 24 months).

Rojo is right. There plenty of solutions to traffic and driving safety that are boring but would be practical.

they are not as sexy sounding as AI / self driving cars / autonomous vehicles - whatever you want to call it - but they are good solutions.

smarter traffic lights, alcohol sensors inside a car that would prevent a car from starting if the driver is intoxicated, harsher / stricter tests for obtaining a drivers license, forcing people over the age of 80 to take a drivers test again, etc.

Do you guys actually drive? These sensors are on probably less than 10% of lights - and hardly any of the major intersections which have the longest lights - and they are stupid as hell.

If I'm the only car at a major intersection and am in the left turn lane, I do not want to sit there for 2 minutes particularly when the only red light is a red arrow. The red arrow is the most infuriating light of al. Let me be the god damn judge of whether I can turn left or not at an empty intersection.

As for fully autonomous cars, here is my big worry. Let's say the tech worked perfectl 100% of the time. If we ignore pedestrians and animals, there would be no need for lights or even street directions. And self driving would naturally be made actually illegal.

And that's what scares me. The day they take the steering wheel out of the car is the day our freeedoms are really gone.

I drive, just not in a sh*thole.

He did do something - he started this thread while waiting.

Run that sht

Quotes like these is why I love you rojo.

Hitting a long string of reds - ugh. But when you time it just right and get a row of consecutive greens - hell ya. There is one section of road in my hometown with like 6 lights in a mile that does what you describe. Hitting them all green is adrenaline raising lol. If you get one just before it turns and drive exactly the speed limit (or faster obv) you can make them all just before they turn.

In my experience in CA the sensors for cross streets were in place on most lights, but seemingly turned off during the day with the effect of avoiding "wasted" wait time during the "off" hours but staying to some sort of programed cycle during "on" hours. Sensors for the turn lanes seemed to stay active, but in some cases were too sensitive so that if for example there was a small gap in the line of turning cars the light would turn red before many could get through.

Work big to small I always say. Before cars drive themselves lets figure out traffic lights in the middle of nowhere. I agree.

Also, bear in mind on some interstates/toll roads they still have all of humanity come to a stop to pay a toll. It like a built-in accident. Slowly but surely things like EZPass are coming on line, but to this day i still have to wait in traffic in the middle of west virginia on I77 while each and every car hands money to a human, then 10 miles later do it again. Charge 5 cents more in taxes or something. Geez.

"There was this one night I was driving home from work, and there was nobody on the street - I mean, nobody. And I'm sitting there at a red light, just waiting, waiting. And there's no cars anywhere. But, still, I sat there. I OBEYED. There's when I realized it's not about technology, it's not about machines. It's about what they're doing to us. It's about what they're doing to us, what they do to our hearts, 'cause our hearts are no longer free." -Jim Fitzgerald (Year: 1997)

Inspired by the Ivy League man he put behind bars:

"A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man's freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn't want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much faster than the walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man's freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one's own pace one's movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license requirements, driver test, renewing registration, insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport the arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that the majority of people no longer live within walking distance of their place of employment, shopping areas and recreational opportunities, so that they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for transportation. Or else they must use public transportation, in which case they have even less control over their own movement than when driving a car. Even the walker's freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop and wait for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note the important point we have illustrated with the case of motorized transport: When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.)"

You are all clueless. They (who ever 'they' are) are punishing people who insist on driving cars and not taking the bus. They're trying to force us to use public transportation.

(1) This post undermines the private and governmental agenda of Elon Musk, who is a VERY important advisor in the upcoming presidential administration. I have @ Elon on X with a link to this thread and with the contextual information that you are trying to undermine him

(2) they already DO have smart traffic lights. Just looks like they don’t have any installed at this particular intersection

(3) You live in/outside Baltimore, a city that has above average rates of poverty, drug addiction, and societal issues that affect an outsized majority of the population. You, on the other hand, are worth millions of dollars. Whether or not you had to follow the law by waiting an entire 90 seconds at an intersection does not concern me in the slightest

There’s even a wiki page for “smart traffic lights,” but you couldn’t ve bothered to figure that out on your own

en.m.wikipedia.org

Smart traffic light

Smart traffic lights or Intelligent traffic lights are a vehicle traffic control system that combines traditional traffic lights with an array of sensors and artificial intelligence to intelligently route vehicle and pedestri...

Open link

Indeed, there are pages and pages of information about smart traffic lights that are readily available with a simple google search

No way, instead posting a thread on letsrun will solve the problem