Quote:
Originally Posted by zamler
How can a countdown timer possibly make things less safe? I can adjust as needed so if at all possible I avoid going through a yellow light. I'm not going to speed up or slow down drastically, and I don't need to. This suggests it does help
https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/t...iver-responses |
I didn’t say less safe. I said less throughput.
Though your article does highlight an interesting effect that might make up for the loss of throughput. It identified that people start accelerating faster from red so that might help. It also might lead to more collisions from red light runners.
If you look at that article it says that it increased the likelihood that a driver in the dilemma zone would stop. I contend that this doesn’t actually improve safety as the light timing already addresses the dilemma zone.
The other problem from a design side is in down town areas where you want to have dedicated green time for right turns. So you want the pedestrian signal to stop pedestrians but allow traffic.