Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
The problem is people in the option 2 scenario chose to coast in when if they had continued at speed would have safely made it through the intersection after entering the dilemma zone. Thr timing of the yellow and Red/Red phase has already allowed for people going through the intersection on yellow.
I agree in the no chance scenario or speed up scenario it could help. However I think the practical application is that people slow down early rather than entering the intersection on yellow. This reduces through put.
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Do you really thing there are people out there who would
prefer to stop at a yellow/red than go through on a green? I know there are lots of lunatics in this world, but i don't know haw many are
that crazy
Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
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.
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I'm surprised that you value the last marginal throughput vehicle in an intersection over safety* (despite it being an insufferably overused justification for everything). Vast majority of accidents happen at intersections
https://data.calgary.ca/Transportati...ents/yj8z-ptzu, and signal turning yellow is almost certainly the most dangerous time at a signalled intersection (and I suspect people highly overrate rear-end risk).
For one thing, there's a pretty good chance that waiting one light cycle will end up inconsequential to your total trip time.
Aside from the economic impact and resource allocation from accidents, the subsequent delays caused are always more significant than the dispersed gains from getting one more car through.
I don't think it's nearly as hard to stop at yellows as the Royal We tend to claim. We just want to get through. But I know I get caught every now and then in the dilemma zone on a yellow and think for a quarter-second: "screw it - I'm good to make it" ...but in that span my brain will identify the car planning to left turn across me on yellow and that I still have plenty of time to stop under firm (but not crazy hard) braking.
90% of the time that we say "it was safer to go through" we are full of ####. Myself included.