

Unintended hazard: Energy-efficient traffic lights can't melt snow - cwan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091216/ap_on_re_us/us_snow_covered_stoplights

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eplawless
This is a lot like the conductive metal buttons the city installed earlier
this year at a number of pedestrian crossings here in Ottawa. They've worked
great all summer, they don't wear out as quickly because they aren't
mechanical, but they're just now starting to realize that once February hits
and it's -30C outside you'll have to take off your gloves and touch some metal
to cross the street. Oh well, I guess the cost of progress is sometimes being
stuck to a metal pole.

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Raphael
Maybe you could carry a steak around.

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mahmud
Wikipedia doesn't have a disambiguation page for "steak", and I am really
guessing you didn't mean a thick juicy cut of loin from premium Australian
beef, done medium rare.

If I carried that around, _I_ would be melting the snow.

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moeffju
I think P meant steak, as you can use a piece of meat to trigger conductive
switches...

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malkia
Leaky Abstraction!... Well not really - just reminded me of it. Sometimes
making the things simpler (e.g. consuming less energy) calls for unexpected
effects.

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jamesbritt
"Sometimes making the things simpler (e.g. consuming less energy) calls for
unexpected effects."

Simple is complicated.

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ZeroGravitas
I wonder how the rate of covering by snow compares with blown bulbs needing
replaced, as both result in the lights not being visible. (Though I'm guessing
it's more likely for more than one light to be obscured by snow than to be
blown, which might makes things worse (or better?))

In areas where there is little or no snow then this would be an (un?)expected
benefit of the change to more efficient lights.

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nico
Same thing with halogen vs xenon car lights. One of the reasons xenon kits are
illegal in many countries, they lack wipers and xenon lights can't melt snow
(they usually also lack lenses, hence they dazzle other drivers).

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imrehg
Accidents are terrible things, but I'm not exactly sure why to blame those
traffic accidents on the lights instead of the drivers. First rule: drive as
the driving conditions permit. Had it been a power-cut or a mist (making the
traffic lights similarly unusable), would people still blame the lights if
someone crashes their car? Unintended: sure. Hazard: quite possibly. Driving
carefully: priceless...

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epochwolf
If you can't see the lights you can misread the signals. I live in Green Bay,
WI and I saw most of the lights along my morning route to school were covered
on north/south lanes but clear on east/west. It was very very difficult to
determine what light I had even using the east/west lights to rule out them
having a green light. I had several close calls. Additional in Green Bay
visibility was quite poor and the roads were dangerous.

As for people missing the signals, I have a theory. Everyone I know determines
if they have a red, yellow, or green light by looking at the color of the
light. (Bear with me here.) I look at the position of the light instead of the
color. I am the only person I know with normal vision that does this. From the
number of people I've asked, only those with colorblindness read lights by
position. I would assume this means most people look for a light to find a
stoplight. Given poor visibility the lack of a visible light means people
won't see the signal.

Free feel to poke holes in my theory or ask me questions about my specialness
with street lights.

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marze
The heater should trigger on the detection of signal light reflected from
snow.

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furyg3
I wonder if a clear plastic shield coated in Teflon would work...

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jules
Or make the tubes (more) open at the bottom and tilt the lights a little bit.

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pmjordan
Yep, that's how it's done with most traffic lights in central Europe, e.g.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/30626457@N00/4580229/>

I've never seen lights with that design obscured by snow, and many are LED
based now.

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ZeroGravitas
Doesn't that very photo you link to show a light obscured by snow?

(The top one a little bit, and the middle one much more so. The bottom one is
the clearest because the snow can't build up on the cover of the one below).

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paulsilver
If you look at the next photo in the stream -
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/dustpuppy/4580359> you'll see the red light is
still two-thirds visible. Whilst that's not perfect, it's better than nothing.
Coverage of the amber (middle) light isn't much of an issue as it's used in
transition between the main lights. In those conditions, not seeing the amber
isn't going to need much of a behavioural change.

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kw_
The problem is pretty well known, with (I believe) several companies selling
heaters that activate in cold weather.

I was even able to find articles that mentioned the issue dating back to Q4
2000.

As such, I'm not sure why this is all over the internet today. Somebody
ignored a well-known issue and bought the wrong product. It worked as
expected.

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anigbrowl
Why bother with heaters? A plastic cap in front of the tubular 'hood' should
work just as well and is a one-off cost. In the photo you can see the problem
is the snow piling up inside the tubular shade. Cap the tube and gravity will
do the rest.

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janzer
Notice the sign to the right of the signal. Even though it is a straight
vertical surface it's covered as well. Blowing wet snow will stick to just
about anything.

