
Traffic lights worldwide set to change after a Swedish engineer saw red - bennyp101
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/21/traffic_lights_changed/
======
fnordfnordfnord
>When Järlström brought the issue to the Oregon State Board of Examiners for
Engineering and Land Surveying, the state board opened an investigation in
2015 and fined him $500 the following year for practicing engineering without
a professional license.

What a bunch of pricks. Vogons couldn't have done any worse than the Oregon
State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying.

~~~
SECProto
While on this issue I mostly agree with the defendant, I think it's reasonable
to protect certain titles (engineer, doctor, lawyer, dentist). For a parallel
situation, imagine a hypothetical person named Phil, who has a doctorate in
psychology. They call themselves "doctor" and give medical advise to the
unwitting public, despite having no relevant training.

In this case, the guy had training as an electric engineer, but was commenting
outside of his proven realm of expertise. However, he wasn't deceiving the
public by representing himself as an engineer-for-hire, though, which I think
makes it forgivable. I just found the free speech ruling to be over-broad.

~~~
eikenberry
Just FYI many people with doctorates (not MDs) do call themselves doctors.
I've known many Finance, Philosophy and Econ doctors in my time and they all
use that title and their name plaques all had "Dr. So-and-so" on them. I'm
sure it is common in other areas as well.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
I don't know how it works in America, but in Europe (or at least in the
European countries I know) that's actually the formal standard. If you have a
PhD, you earn the right to be called Dr. (name). If you get a degree in
medicine, you are colloquially addressed as "doctor" but formally you aren't
one, unless you get the PhD in medicine.

~~~
consp
In those countries there are also separate registries for MD's which are the
guide for allowing you to practice medicine.

There are however many, many more professions which require specialty training
and are protected: [https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-
databases/regprof/index.cf...](https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-
databases/regprof/index.cfm?action=map_regulations)

------
inanutshellus
I'm surprised!

Where I live you're safe from the red light camera if your front-two tires are
over the white line when the light changes to red. Sounds like in Oregon
you're only safe if you're _out_ of the intersection when it turns red, which
seems entirely absurd, especially for tourists / newcomers to the area. How am
I supposed to know how quickly your yellow light changes on this street?

~~~
Zimahl
I live in Beaverton, OR. I'm not a fan of red light cameras but it's not that
easy to get a red light ticket. We only have 4 intersections that have red
light cameras[0], and they were put in because of the egregious abuse of the
intersections. To get a red light ticket you would've had to either ignore or
respond to a yellow light way later than anyone would agree is acceptable.
There are intersections here where 3 or 4 cars will continue to turn on a red
signal - it's insane.

Mr. Jarlstrom's wife may have been an outlier for the hardware and software
that calculates the tickets. But, overall, the system is catching folks who
are breaking the law.

[0]: [https://beavertonpolice.org/204/Photo-
Enforcement](https://beavertonpolice.org/204/Photo-Enforcement)

~~~
krustyburger
I spend a lot of time in Beaverton and have had quite a few close calls as a
pedestrian. There’s something about the way they teach driving in Washington
County...

~~~
Zimahl
It's the lackadaisical suburbs. Distracted drivers all over the place.

------
Dumblydorr
Lights seem incredibly inefficient to me. How many times have I been driving
towards a green at the speed limit and it turns yellow just in time to force
me to slam on the brakes or the gas pedal, all to let one waiting car go? Why
not detect my coming and wait for an efficient yellow timing, thus I am not
wasting gas and braking unnecessarily? This would substantially improve carbon
emissions and brake dust, yet dozens of times per month, I see lights
inefficiently block traffic unnecessarily.

~~~
lunias
Agreed. The traffic light paradigm that I've seen popping up more often (which
really bothers me) is the red left turn arrow. Light's green, no oncoming
traffic; but can't make a very safe left because there's a red arrow staring
back at me.

~~~
fma
For this scenario, I've seen new lights have the left turn arrow blinks. It
lets you know you can turn left if it's safe to do so.

It took a while to get used to because in the past there simply just won't be
any signal, to imply you can go if you want.

~~~
lilott8
I've really loathed my time driving in socal coming from the midwest. The idea
that I cannot turn left on green is one of the more appalling "features" of
traffic management here (the way the lights work, in general is abhorrent).
But slowly, throughout socal, I've seen the flashing yellow left-turn arrow; a
subtle change to the UX that I think is brilliant and should be adopted
everywhere.

------
pardavis
Where I’m from in southern USA, there are 65mph state highways with 4 way
traffic light intersections. There is always a “stop light ahead” sign, and
the rule is simple: if you are traveling the speed limit and you pass the
“stop light ahead” sign before the light starts to change, you will clear the
yellow phase.

~~~
allenofthehills
In Idaho, where they also have 65+ mph highways with traffic light
intersections, they have the "stop light ahead" signs, but instead of having
long yellow lights, there are lights on the "stop light ahead" sign. (The
lights on the sign will start flashing several seconds before the traffic
lights change to yellow.) The rule is basically the same though, if you pass
the sign before its lights start flashing, you'll make it thru the
intersection, otherwise, start slowing down.

~~~
chooseaname
We have these in places in Florida. I still slow down (but not slower than the
posted min) through these intersections. I've seen way too many accidents on
these types of intersections to trust _anybody_.

------
dr_dshiv
Longer yellow lights are more dangerous! It should be a signal to stop -- but
if long enough, it becomes a signal to "speed up and hurry through." Amsterdam
has very short yellow lights, but the result is that when you see yellow, you
stop.

~~~
kurthr
In California (I don't know Oregon) the law is that you can't enter an
intersection under red. Unless you have countdown timers (or a good orthogonal
view), you don't know when a light will turn red. The yellow, then, should be
long enough for you to safely exit the intersection (under congestion laws you
usually are not allowed to enter an intersection if there is not room for you
to exit it) assuming the other direction turns green (very shortly) after red.
An alternative safe solution would be to extend the time between red and
opposing green (non-overlap) and keep yellows shorter.

Frankly, it's strange to me that even 0.12 sec was not enough, if the camera
was only focused on the entry into the intersection. My guess is that it was
shooting rear plates in the intersection, and catching turning cars (to
maximize revenue)... Of course there are states where entering under a yellow
is prohibited, but then we've legislated Pi to be 3 too.

Now, I have also seen Bostonians jump off the line before a light turned green
and that would certainly have me stomping my brakes into a stale yellow, but
I'm not sure it's safer.

~~~
NightlyDev
"entering under a yellow is prohibited"

What dumbasses came up with that rule? Isn't the whole point of the yellow
light to signal that it will turn red soon, and that people have to make a
choice?

So if you drive up to a green light then you have to stop, wait for the red
light and then drive when it turns green again to ensure that you're not
running a yellow light.

~~~
tom_mellior
Around here (Europe) the meaning of yellow is "stop and don't enter", almost
equivalently to red. The only difference is that if at the moment the light
turns red you are so close and so fast that you cannot stop safely, then you
can continue. So you have to make a decision, but it's not really a "choice".

In practice yellow phases are too long and taken by many as a signal to speed
up and speed through. I don't think police enforce the rules here, but this is
clearly prohibited.

~~~
simonh
> if at the moment the light turns red you are so close and so fast that you
> cannot stop safely, then you can continue.

If you are still travelling fast at the lights when they turn red, you must
have been ignoring the yellow light, so this makes no sense. The whole point
of the yellow light is to ensure that you have time to stop before the lights
go red, making running the red lights inexcusable.

Not that I've never run a red light, I'm no angel, but this argument is
absurd.

~~~
silvester23
I am fairly sure they meant "if at the moment the light turns _yellow_ you are
so close and so fast that you cannot stop safely"

That's how I learned it in Germany, anyway.

~~~
tom_mellior
Argh, sorry, yes, that's what I meant. When the light turns _yellow_ , you
_must_ stop unless it would be dangerous to brake that hard.

------
goda90
Excuse the anecdote over links to actual studies, but one of my old roommate's
father worked on traffic light systems that time the yellow light based on the
speed of cars approaching. They extended the time for cars that couldn't stop
safely or that were accelerating to get through the light. This apparently
reduced accidents at those intersections.

~~~
inanutshellus
Yup, but that's custom tech your municipality sprung for. In the '90s there
was a town I lived in whose lights identified your approach and changed to
green for you as you arrived (at low density times). If you went the speed
limit, you never stopped or slowed down.

I've pined for that tech in every place I've lived since. :-D

~~~
jagged-chisel
I seem to run across the opposite: I'm approaching a green on a night with
practically no traffic, and the thing changes, timed to go red before I could
get through the yellow. So I sit, waiting while it's green the other way, and
no traffic in sight.

------
strenholme
One dirty trick some cities do is reduce the time traffic lights are yellow to
increase red light camera ticket revenue:

[https://nypost.com/2012/10/08/citys-gotcha-traffic-
cameras-u...](https://nypost.com/2012/10/08/citys-gotcha-traffic-cameras-use-
short-yellow-lights-to-increase-ticket-revenue-study/)

------
wool_gather
> When Järlström brought the issue to the Oregon State Board of Examiners for
> Engineering and Land Surveying, [they] fined him $500 [...] for practicing
> engineering without a professional license.

Wow, as described this is outrageous. It's not like he was out there changing
the lights himself. He _made a proposal_. I guess that's why he won the court
case, although I think that might go too far as well: requiring licenses for
engineers makes sense. It should be required for actually implementing
changes, though, not just talking about them.

~~~
kayfox
They did not fine him right off the bat, there was some back and forth where,
possibly because of a language issue, they got the impression that he was
asserting himself as a licensed engineer. That's bad in nearly every
jurisdiction in most places in the world.

~~~
wool_gather
Thanks. This would have been a good detail for the article author to include.
Do you have a link to a better description of the dispute?

------
auiya
It seems like the main issue here is the automated ticket generation from
traffic cameras, not the yellow light timing. People generally police
themselves in traffic out of self-interest for their own vehicles. Nanny cams
meant to issue fines at every intersection are an egregious overreach.

------
ainiriand
At least here in Europe yellow means 'stop in safety conditions'. So if the
driver saw yellow and didn't stop then they can't blame that the red light
came too fast because they should be stopped already.

~~~
jmnicolas
Europe is not a country. In France a yellow gets you a fine. A red gets you a
heftier fine and a penalty on your driving license points.

~~~
noneeeed
I'm not sure if I misunderstand you, but that seems dangerous What if it
changes to yellow just before you get to the line, are you supposed to slam on
the breaks or risk getting a fine for going through on amber?

In the UK the amber means "prepare to stop" but only if you can do so safely.
If you are too close to stop then you should carry on through (which should be
safe as all other lights should be red at this point).

~~~
jmnicolas
Yellow lights are in a gray area (pun intended ;-) You're supposed to stop
safely but you're supposed to have "mastery of your vehicle" at all time.

So basically it all boils down to the mood of the cops. I would say it's not
frequent to be fined for a yellow (never happened to me in more than 20 years
of driving) but I'm pretty sure it would fail your driving license exam.

I think (but I'm not sure) that traffic light cameras only catch red lights.

------
amluto
Jarlström’s website is
[http://redflex.jarlstrom.com/](http://redflex.jarlstrom.com/) and his report
(long PDF) is
[http://www.jarlstrom.com/PDF/Exhibit_1_FINAL_An_investigatio...](http://www.jarlstrom.com/PDF/Exhibit_1_FINAL_An_investigation_of_the_ITE_formula_and_its_use_R14.pdf)

------
post_break
Now I wish green lights had strobes to wake up zombies looking at their
phones. I'm going to wear out my horn at this point due to people treating a
red light like phone time out and not paying attention.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Enh, that's annoying, but easily fixed by a polite quick-tap on the horn. I've
made a conscious decision not to let it stress me out when someone adds all of
5 seconds to my commute.

I'm more annoyed by the people who lay on the horn like a New York cabbie if
I'm half a second late off the line (sometimes because of an obstruction they
can't see).

~~~
lbsnake7
You aren’t supposed to take that too seriously. The cabbies are usually doing
it for dramatic effect for their passenger. It works for me when I’m in a cab
and my cabbie honks at people. Feels like he’s trying to get somewhere on
time. Probably if I paid attention, I would see him honking at people waiting
for legitimate reasons.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I'm talking about ordinary commuters who honk like they're furious cabbies.

------
stefan_
If you are approaching a turn, you should be driving at a fraction of the
speed limit before even approaching the stop line. That seems to suggest that
the time frame in which you can safely stop upon seeing a yellow light is
correspondingly longer than when going straight at the speed limit.

So if anything, yellow light for turns should be shorter. If you are still in
the intersection by the time the light goes red, it is probably because you
had to brake hard when you realized you had to yield to someone (i.e. ped on a
crosswalk going straight). In this case, you should absolutely get the ticket
because all western driving codes expressly forbid entering an intersection
unless you can promptly execute your turn without waiting; it is strict
liability.

So sure, you go slower through an intersection when turning. But this entirely
ignores that you had much more time to stop safely for the yellow light;
braking distance is quadratic with speed, so the effect is even more lopsided.

~~~
AlfeG
Totally agree. Entering on yellow should be a last resort, that is not driven
by the hurry.

In Ukraine we have 4 seconds of blinking green light before yellow, that
should be more then enough to notice and slow down for full stop. But I do
like much more traffic lights with number of seconds till light change (in
Kharkiv almost all trafic lights are replaced with numbered one). This is
incredibly usefull, cause You can notice numbers from long distance and plan
route accordingly.

It's pitty that not all cities and countries go for traffic lights with
timers.

------
kstenerud
What would make even more sense is to progressively change the lights to give
the driver a better sense of the timing.

For example, in 2s intervals:

Green -> Green + Yellow -> Yellow + Red -> Red

This way, you not only know from a glance how stale the yellow is, but also
you get a better indication of the timing. When a light simply goes Green ->
Yellow -> Red, you have no frame of reference from which to gauge how long it
will stay yellow, especially since every light has different timing.

You could even go one further, using blinking lights:

Solid green -> Green + Yellow (yellow blinks 3 times), Yellow + Red (red
blinks 3 times) -> Solid red

And to improve traffic startup, you could do the opposite (Red -> Red + Yellow
-> Green), as is done in many European countries.

~~~
tdburn
I’ve been thinking for a long time that a blinking yellow would be
revolutionary and simple. They should make the yellow begin to blink when it’s
x number is seconds from going red. Because as is you have little reference to
how soon it will shift.

~~~
noneeeed
Something like that has been tried before, using a timer display. It was
pretty disastrous because people accelerated to beat the red. I think this was
in China, so perhaps in other countries it might work better if the driving
culture was more cautious.

Timers on the red seem to work well though, giving people advance waning to
prepare to go, get in gear etc. There is one near me that seems to help get
the traffic moving through faster when the lights change.

------
RaceWon
Good for him. My first street accident happened when I was 16 (two years
before I started street racing--which btw is very dangerous, and for sure I
don't advocate for it. Street racing is irresponsible, and street cars are
sooo much flimsier than race cars, it's not even funny). I was in the Bronx
(it was not legal for me to drive there at 16 btw) at an intersection crossing
Mosholu Parkway. I was Not speeding, I was a novice driver--I looked up at
light, it was green; when I crossed the intersection I was T-Boned by another
car. Thankfully everyone was ok.

Back then, in certain areas of the Bronx and unbeknownst to me, there were
traffic lights that only had two bulbs; one was green, one was red. There was
No yellow light--the green and red lights would come on simultaneously which
denoted "yellow". That almost killed us.

I took that as a good lesson a few months later as I started down the path of
becoming a racer, And I follow this Rule assiduously to this day (to be
clear;I no longer street race But I am still Extra careful on unknown roads);
make sure you KNOW the road you are on before you drive fast on it. And TBH in
my street racing days I would even take a drive by first to make sure there
was no construction, broken water mains, ice or whatever happening... it's one
of the main reasons I'm still alive.

------
surfsvammel
Oh. To think things like this will all be obsolete by the time my son _would_
get a drivers license.

 _crossing fingers for self-driving-cars_

~~~
driverdan
That's far too optimistic. We may have autonomous vehicles by then, depending
on his current age, but human driven vehicles will still exist. Signals aren't
going away.

------
Causality1
>Even a small timing increase would help – the automatically generated ticket
in this case was issued 0.12 seconds after the light turned red.

The fact tickets were issued on the light turning red rather than the opposing
light turning green should tell you all you need to know about whether this is
intended to increase road safety or generate revenue.

------
elif
In Atlanta, where yellow means "hurry up" and red means "ok go if traffic is
still moving" I am not confident that longer yellows will result in higher
safety.

Most accidents i've witnessed have been rear endings where a driver was not
from Atlanta and stopped at a yellow.

------
cr0sh
We have the technology today to do this right - make the green and yellow
lights have a countdown number, or blink slowly then quicker as time gets
shorter (not sure if that might cause a person to have a seizure though for
those prone?)

The problem is people don't know how long the green then yellow really is, nor
when it is about to change from yellow to red. I've been using crosswalk
countdowns where they're available, but they aren't always reliable in my city
(Phoenix). Sometimes, it will hit zero - and the light will stay green.

But most of the time, when it hits zero, it will go from green to yellow, then
you have roughly 3 seconds left.

~~~
krustyburger
The time is also variable by location, even between proximate American cities.
For instance, the yellows in Los Angeles seem to be substantially briefer than
the ones in San Diego or Orange County.

~~~
bgorman
Even worse, Chicago intentionally reduced yellow light times to increase the
rate of traffic tickets to generate additional revenue.

------
MayeulC
Speaking of red lights, I have been wondering for a while now if they wouldn't
be an ideal platform to experiment with image recognition for self driving
vehicles? I can elaborate more, but you also get the benefit of fairer traffic
lights.

I'm saying this as I commute by bike, and often have to wait at a red light,
with no car in sight. Some have detectors, but they often don't work on bikes
(even when putting my bike on the ground, in case of inductive sensors).

------
danschumann
I think victimless crimes are kinda dangerous... THE STATE vs SO-AND-SO...
Okay, yes, we need traffic laws, but some the people on the receiving end of
their traffic violation should have some say. Did they feel endangered? Did
they feel wronged? Or, was it justifiable? The drug was is another example of
the state vs so-and-so. The victims are somehow the users, but they're also
the defendants. So, can they drop the charges against themselves?

~~~
balls187
This isn't a crime. It's extortion. It's a red-light camera, implemented in a
way to take money from the citizenry and line the coffers of city government
(though a % goes to the manufacturer of the camera).

------
gorgoiler
Traffic lights are one of those bits of industrial design that you really
don’t mess around with.

If you’d like a good old fashioned website to go with your coffee break, and
you are now or would like to become interested in everything one could
possibly need to know about British traffic lights, may I thoroughly recommend
beno’s site to you?:

[http://beno.uk/trafficlight/](http://beno.uk/trafficlight/)

------
zenexer
Many of the traffic lights in Boston seem to have significantly shorter yellow
light durations than the rest of Massachusetts--roughly a single second. It's
just one of the many factors that makes driving in Boston feel like a constant
battle for survival.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world apparently considers 3 seconds to be too
short. I'd be quite delighted if Boston followed suit.

------
kevin_thibedeau
> Järlström has won not only the right to refer to himself as an engineer, a
> refund of the surveying board fine (though not the ticket penalty)

Would be amusing if he sued the state in small claims for extortion and
racketeering to get the ticket penalty back.

------
mooneater
Why should the transitions be a surprise? The lights should blink in a simple
accelerating pattern used to signal impending transition. Then everyone knows
how much time remains.

~~~
gpm
Instead of blinking, let's just use a nice old fashion counter like we do for
many pedestrian crossings?

~~~
mooneater
Any sensible indicator. But some would be easy to interpret even for those who
are not numerate.

------
daveslash
Obligatory relevant XKCD Comic [https://xkcd.com/277/](https://xkcd.com/277/)

~~~
KingMachiavelli
I always give traffic control stuff some leeway during rush hour since
obviously traffic engineering has to make compromises, BUT I hate that no one
cares about low traffic hours at all. I'm often going to or from a friends
house that lives near a major highway with frequent lights. The lights are
stuck on some timing such that driving the speed limit can result in getting
stuck at nearly every stop light.

------
dawnerd
I live in Beaverton and can tell you that poorly timed intersections are
pretty standard - really the entire valley for that matter.

------
naringas
worldwide? really??

Where I live (big urban metropolis) it's completely normal and commonplace for
at least 1 or 2 cars (and sometimes up to 3 or 4 cars) to pass through after
the signal turned _red_. It seems drivers consider the yellow light to be
pretty much the same as the green light.

the worse the intersection, the more it happens.

------
dasbaumwolltier
In Austria the green light blinks four tones before our goes to yellow and
then after two seconds or goes to red.

------
duxup
My title says "software engineer"... would that violate some engineer title
law?

------
not_a_cop75
While we're at it, can we insist that all lights use blue-green instead of
just green? That could help those that suffer from color blindness.

~~~
ethanwillis
I had an uncle who was color blind, as in fully color blind. When I was a kid
I asked him how he could drive not knowing if he should stop or not.

What he said to me was "Green is on top, yellow is in the middle, red is on
bottom." It's such a simple answer that I was amazed I hadn't thought of it.

~~~
not_a_cop75
While true, and obvious to experienced drivers, not every light is vertical.
Some are horizontally placed.

~~~
graywh
He may be joking? The US and Canada have green on the bottom.

~~~
ethanwillis
My mistake, I actually got the order wrong because I don't ever need to think
about it..

