Eko Light is a traffic light whose purpose is to promote safer driving and less fuel consumption, while at the same time helping the environment by reducing carbon emissions and improving traffic flow. Eko Light can be easily installed into existing traffic light systems without much effort.
What a great idea. I like knowing that the light is working and about how much time I have to wait.
Most of the lights around here are variable in length, depending on traffic. They’re triggered by sensors in the streets detecting traffic waiting on the street that’s got the red light. I don’t see any way this could possibly work on such intersections.
And I don’t see how this could be safer seeing as people like to try to catch the tail end of an “orange” light and just blast through an intersection. If there is a timer on the lights then you are more likely to go exactly at the change or even jump the gun. I’ve been at several lights where if I had gone exactly when it changed instead of for one reason or another, I would have been T-boned by a late car and once a semi going through a red light (I don’t blame the semi much, he was coming down a hill and about to reach the intersection when it changed so he couldn’t stop, but he should have been blowing his horn or something). As it is, I use the new countdown “walk” signs to see if I have enough time to get through the intersection, which is ok, but a bit distracting. I don’t think the little these lights would save by being more effcient will compensate for the increased number of accidents.
I think these are a great idea. I can’t speak for other jurisdictions, but I do know that in most of Canada, when one light turns red, the other doesn’t immediately turn green. This delay, during which both lights are red, is designed to reduce the likelihood of accidents caused by cars running the red while traffic is starting to move on the green.
As for the lights not working on intersections with sensors, again most such intersections where I’ve driven still have a delay. So, the progress bar would be fully lit until a vehicle triggers the sensor, after which it would start to count down. This would be advantageous for traffic in both directions. If I see a light is solidly green because no traffic has triggered the sensor on a cross street, then I have no incentive to accelerate to try to beat the light. If I’m at the red light, and I see the timer start as soon as my vehicle triggers the sensor, I know that I have successfully done so and won’t wonder if I need to edge my vehicle forward (or back) in order to trigger it. People on motorcycles or bikes would also know whether or not they’ve triggered the sensor, and not get stuck waiting for a light that will never change because it doesn’t know they’re there.
The progress bars are not on the yellow or green lights, so they would operate as they do now. You will always have people try to beat the yellow light. That is a fact of life.
We have the countdown timer for cross walks in Lawrence, KS. It helps cut down the annoying wonder of when the light will change to green for your direction. I think it will help because people will be less likely to run a red light if they know a green light is coming soon.
Purplepoetj is completely correct. You’ll have a lot more “Yellow/Green” traffic collisions because people will pay even less attention to the road and just gas it on the exact spot when it changes.
If people were smarter/more observant/patient this could work. Sadly, people are not.
Agreed C.A. And I would personally use more gas, clutch, and throwout bearing. You see, what this is is a dragstrip starting light.
We have these somewhat in Japan, but it doesn’t help. Still a lot of people run red lights. It’s mostly for impatient people wanting to know how long they have to wait for the green light.
In Soviet Union, red (Communist light) went to yellow before going to green. That way, if you were approaching intersection with Communist light, you would not have to necessarily brake and come to a full stop, presuming you could indeed come to a full stop in a Moskvitch.