LED traffic light

Poppycat

I often wondered this as I like to save money and do my bit for the environment. Why dont traffic lights use LED arrays? Surely that woudl not only save on energy costs but, also labour as led last longer and if one goes it doesn't need replacement the whole lot unlike a bulb

We getting a whole load of new traffic lights in my home town due to a new park and ride coming on stream this year, we seem to get a lot of problems with lighst going off too, and funny enough I notice traffic is rarely on hold up when lighst dont work people slow down and are muhc more careful

Found these links interesting

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question178.htm
http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/04/taiwan-switching-to-led-traffic-lights
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAAbsy15OLo

geordie_joe

Poppycat wrote: »

funny enough I notice traffic is rarely on hold up when lighst dont work people slow down and are muhc more careful

Saw a doco about this. The theory is when you tell drives what to do they think they have a right to do it. When a traffic light turns to green they just race of "in the knowledge that they are in the right because they've been told they can go" They don't look to see if someone is crossing the road ahead of them, or is someone coming from the side didn't notice the lights change.

Some town, could have been in Holland took away all the traffic signs, road marking etc. even the pavements. It resulted in no more traffic accidents. The reason is, without anything to tell them what to do, people had to make a decision themselves. And they became more careful as they didn't have that "I had right of way" to hide behind if an accident occurred. They had to become responsible for their own actions.

morg_monster

New traffic lights ARE made from LED arrays, and when old ones need to be replaced they are replaced with LEDs, so slowly they are being phased in. They are much more expensive at the moment but lifetime costs will be lower than the old ones.
You can just about see the little bulbs in the LED lights if you are at the front of the queue. They're much brighter than the old ones and I find easier to see if the sun is behind them.

Poppycat

Yes I agree, I dont always think traffic lights are a good thing, sure there are places where they are needed, I have seen it lots of times in our town where there are hardly any traffic because it runs smoothly when lights dont work. The following day same time lights back on and huge queues again, hardly environmentally friendly. Some perceived danger is a good thing

The thing in Holland is a Homezone where pedestrians have as much right as do drivers on a shared space. The problem we have is our culture for too long we been boxed in and you cant do this and you cant do that.

As I said in my 1st post we having new traffic lights in many places due to park and ride and priority to buses it would be nice if they could think about using LED's as tbh that would be only a small amount extra in a budget of many millions that is going for the new traffic system

geordie_joe wrote: »

Saw a doco about this. The theory is when you tell drives what to do they think they have a right to do it. When a traffic light turns to green they just race of "in the knowledge that they are in the right because they've been told they can go" They don't look to see if someone is crossing the road ahead of them, or is someone coming from the side didn't notice the lights change.

Some town, could have been in Holland took away all the traffic signs, road marking etc. even the pavements. It resulted in no more traffic accidents. The reason is, without anything to tell them what to do, people had to make a decision themselves. And they became more careful as they didn't have that "I had right of way" to hide behind if an accident occurred. They had to become responsible for their own actions.