[ExI] Driverless cars for law enforcement

John Clark johnkclark at gmail.com
Tue Feb 17 17:58:32 UTC 2015


On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 , Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> Irresponsible, yes. But speed limits are sometimes ridiculously low and
> speeding isn't *always* unsafe.
>

Agreed, but what really gets me is that in 2015 most traffic lights just
run off a timer (usually mistimed and out of phase with other traffic
lights) and are as stupid as they were in 1950. I sometimes work long hours
and drive home late at night, I get a red light and look left and right
down the side street and as far as the eye can see there are no cars on it,
you could safely land a light airplane on it, and yet the light stubbornly
remains red. And in the daytime when traffic is much greater my light turns
green but I can't move one inch because 300 feet further ahead another
light is red and the cars are backed up all the way to me, then the distant
light turns green and things just start to move and then my light turns
red. This problem went on for years but then the traffic department decided
to do something about it, rather than install lights that have at least a
little more intelligence than the clockwork in my washing machine they put
up a "Don't block intersection" sign and considered the problem solved. I
feel like putting up a "I won't block the intersection if you don't mistime
the lights" sign next to it.  With today's technology there is no excuse
for this sort of stupidity.

Before he started Microsoft Bill Gates's first company analyzed traffic
patterns for city governments, maybe he should get back in that business
and make cheap but intelligent traffic lights.

  John K Clark
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