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Traffic Light Switcher Makes Critics See Red
An anonymous reader writes "According to a Yahoo/Washington Post article: 'It sounds like a suffering commuter's dream come true: a dashboard device that changes red traffic lights to green at the touch of a button.
Police, fire and rescue vehicles have had access to such equipment for years, but now the devices are becoming available to ordinary motorists
thanks to advances in technology and a little help from the Internet. Safety advocates are outraged, and news accounts in Michigan last week
led to politicians there seeking a ban on the gadgets'." Update: 11/06 02:25 GMT by S : A previous Slashdot story mentions the device, though not the Michigan legislature's subsequent ire.
Did we forget the old chrome boxes?
Gee... I wish I had a similar device for "See it early" Slashdot post... ;P
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
why these were legal for non-emergency sale in the first place?
They are on sale here
"Can you imagine the nightmare our roads would be if everybody had one?"
Couldn't the opposite be true? Maybe the light would stay green longer for whichever side had more traffic? Ideally it could create "democratic" intersections and reduce the amount of time you spend stopped with no traffic going the other way. I'm sure it wouldn't actually work, but wouldn't it be cool if it did?
Funny thing, it'll only actually work for the first 100 people. After that, traffic will be substantially slower due to the lights being out of sync that it'll be slower for everyone.
Kinda like sitting in the middle of an intersection on a red. Sure, you were 20 feet ahead of those behind you but the only reason you're stuck in the intersection is the guy 3 blocks up blocking your route.
It's tough, but if everyone cleaned up their driving habits, everyone would be home 5 or 10 minutes earlier rather than just the poor drivers getting home 2 to 3 minutes earlier.
Rod Taylor
You may note that this story is a follow up about how legislatures are pissed. But then again, you may note that you didn't read the story before commenting.
MIRT, 3M Opticom(R), and Tomar Strobecom(R) traffic signal preemption are optically-based communications systems and the main brands of these systems.
Clearly this is illegal (or soon will be) and stupid waste of the public's time and money to refit this lights to stop this silly company. FAC of America located out of Minn. runs websites such as TheMIRT and Guns'N Stuff The are allowing people to be resellers for $300/unit.
There is a flash "demo" of the MIRT in action here
Have every vehicle installed with a device that interacts with a Traffic control light so that it would act like a load balancer. If no one else is by the light then a vehicle would get through without having to stop. Otherwise the light would see how many requests it is getting and let the appropriate group go.
i was told by a traffic engineering friend of mine that there are detectors out there that look for the strobe lights that apart of a emergency vehicle's blinkinlights, and change the light colors accordingly. I would assume that normal headlights are distinguishable from emergency lights (otherwise the detectors would be useless).
Are these the same detectors discussed in the article?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
These devices could be contrasted with radar/laser detectors.
I think the radar/laser detectors are fine, but the devices which allow people to actually change the system should not be allowed.
Radar/Laser detectors serve a good purpose. Yes, they allow people to "undermine" the law by getting around traffic tickets (if you're alert,) but they also slow down traffic when an officer is nearby. The people with the radar detectors slow down when an officer is running radar nearby, and therefore drive safer because they don't want a ticket.
However, devices like the ones coming now actually affect the system rather than circumvent it. My having a radar detector does not affecy anyone but me. But one that allows me to change traffic lights in my favor affects the other people on the road!
This is all IMHO.
This kind of security thinking is akin to hiding your head in the sand. FIX THE PROBLEM! Don't legislate bans on exploits. DESIGN SUCH THINGS SECURELY IN THE FIRST PLACE! It wouldn't be that hard to have developed it with a cryptographically secure access code system in the first place. Sheesh!
What we really need to do is program the lights so that traffic continues to move at the most efficient pace possible. I've sat at so many lights that don't turn green for minutes and there is NO one coming the other direction, that pisses me off to no end.
I lack hard data, this is all real old (like childhood pre-driving) memory, but my understanding is that this was origionally done way back when (like 60s maybe?)using optical sensors and the pointable floodlight on cop cars. It was abused then and the solution was to switch to to some sort of radio thing and take out the green option, simply turnning the light 4 way red. This did not impede an ememrgency vehicle who was the only thing supposed to use it anyway. So I'm thinkng hoax/urban legend real hard. If its true though, screwing with traffic lights in a busy intersection is gonna kill somoeone right fast. Manslaughter/depraved indiference perhaps? This is unfunny.
I'll speak on this again.
While these politicians are at it, why not mandate fuel governors for all cars to prevent them from speeding?
Why not mandate RFID for everyone so that the police can tell where you are when you're a suspect in a crime?
I can understand making people responsible for using such a device, but banning them won't do any more good than those states that banned radar detectors.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
They have been illegal in California for at least 20 years.
...have the change event turn all the lights in the intersection go red. Emergency vehicles will allowed to pass through the intersection AND the intersection will be cleared of any vehicles. Who would want a device that turns lights at an intersection all red? Problem solved.
It's not amusing. It's just wrong.
simply make the traffic controls go red in all directions only like in Canada. EOP Alot of pissed of motorists but at least emergency vehicles will still have the right of way. Totally UnAmerican idea though it is too simple and effective! The people who manufacture and sell the devices will just go out of business like they should.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Then what prevents someone from installing 5-6 devices on one car and skewing the requests the light gets?
Before I ever read it on slashdot, my friends and I were hacking traffic lights thanks to phrack. It used to take me 25 minutes to get to work, but now it only takes 15 :P
It also tells you how to get into the main traffic light control system, though you have to go through a bunch of backdoors into a VAX system. Imagine if Al-Qaeda managed to do that, though...
http://www.phrack.org/phrack/60/p60-0x0e.txt
As the article states, most cities and counties use the Opticon system by 3M. This system has two components, an encoded flash reciever, and a radio reciever. In order to pre-empt the light, you had to have a valid encoded flasher, and the encoded radio signal. There is no nation-wide standard for the pre-emting devices, so each locality sets up its own code. Good luck trying to us one of these black boxes to trip signals, it won't work 99.99% of the time.
I worked on the traffic signal system in a central california town, and we had 3 different codes: 1 for fire/police, 1 for ambulances, and one for maintenance work. Each time a signal was pre-empted, it was logged at the signal control center downtown. I worked with a guy who had a maintenance encoded flasher on his truck. It was kinda fun cruising through town, never hitting a green, but we didn't do it very often.
I think the black boxes they are selling are just for people dumb enough to think they work.
Sure, you can ban these things. Every state will ban them if they become popular. But anyone who gets something like this is not the type of person that is concerned about laws. Think about it, who would buy one of these things? Someone who routinely ignores speed limits, tailgates, runs lights whenever possible. The prospect of paying a fine just won't deter them.
Moderators, read the low-rated replies to the parent. Making all lights go red is workable in low-traffic situations, but in typical city traffic, doing so will just cause things to grind to a halt.
Working around the problem -- that people are impersonating emergency vehicles and therefore causing havoc -- by destroying the usefulness of the devices is the wrong way of handling this.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
It's tough, but if everyone cleaned up their driving habits, everyone would be home 5 or 10 minutes earlier rather than just the poor drivers getting home 2 to 3 minutes earlier.
\begin{game theoretic rambling}
This is a classic example of prisoner's dilemma, where individual welfare is pitted against the common good. Either way, a driver is better off if he acts greedily: If most drivers cooperate with each other, then the greedy driver takes advantage and gets home before the cooperating drivers. If almost nobody cooperates, then one must be a greedy driver, or be taken advantage of.
The big question here is what should a driver do to make commuting the least painful, and there's no simple answer. There are many possible strategies:
1. Always be greedy -- that way you're never the sucker.
2. Never be greedy (Golden Rule) -- that way you're looking out for the common good, and if most other people do the same, then the relatively few greedy jerks out there won't cause too much trouble.
3. Only be greedy in retaliation to another's greed (tit for tat) -- can work well, but can lead to feuds of reciprocal retaliation between two parties.
What will work best? Who knows? Many studies have been done on this with two-player games, with tit-for-tat being the clear winner. Traffic, of course is a multiplayer game, so who knows? My guess is that it would depend on the current traffic conditions -- if you're driving with a bunch of jerks, you have to be a bit greedy, otherwise, go with strategy (2).
\end{game theoretic rambling}
First, other emergency vehicles can or should be able to go through red lights. Motorists might not cooperate though since if they see all-red they may treat it as a 4-way stop.
They could however instead flash red and yellow alternately and quickly so that it would mean EXACTLY and ONLY that an emergency vehicle is approaching and ALL ways need to stop to give it right of way.
Gridlock isn't dependent on the traffic lights (remembering various stories about New York where the fire engines were in the middle of a block and it would take 30 minutes to go just over a mile.
This kind of security thinking is akin to hiding your head in the sand. FIX THE PROBLEM! Don't legislate bans on exploits. DESIGN SUCH THINGS SECURELY IN THE FIRST PLACE! It wouldn't be that hard to have developed it with a cryptographically secure access code system in the first place. Sheesh!
You're right. In fact, I'm going to take your prinicle to heart and exploit the weakness in the locks of your residence. Since you clearly believe that if the lock isn't adequate then the laws shouldn't take effect, I am doing nothing you shouldn't fully expect. Five tumbler locks? Come on! You should have 3ft thick concrete walls, thick steel doors with multiple jamb pins, and a cryptographically secure electric lock which requires something you have, something you know, and something you are. Actually, since that makes you the weak link you shouldn't even give yourself access.
Anarchy is fun to think about intellectually, but at the end of the day I don't want to have to do my own policing, I don't want to make my life cumbersome, and I don't want more than a few percent chance of being robbed/burgled in my life.
Of course, my web server is secured out the yin yang, because police protection does not extend to that area of my life... yet.
-Adam
Just because you can do something doesn't make it right or legal.
If the government tells you you can't use one of those, its real simple, don't use them. Use it and suffer the penalty!
Why the hell should the taxpayers shoulder the massive costs of building a device like that which would be completely immune to misuse? Does it add $1000 per? $10000 per? How much per emergency vehicle? In a town of ten or twenty thousand people with, say, 30 lights, you want the town to give up a teacher or ten because you've got some high and mighty belief that if people CAN do something they SHOULD?
Thats not Score:4 Insightful, it should be Score:0 Retarded.
In this day and age why don't we just start looking for a better solution rather than trying to outlaw these transmitters.
Surely some sort of RFID tag could be fitted to emergency vehicles that would allow for traffic signal control without extraordinary costs. Retrofitting this new technology to the pre-existing traffic intersection control probably wouldn't be too hard either.
Additionally this technology could be used to inform regular vehicles that there is an emergency vehicle in the area. (Provided vehicles were fitted with a suitable receiver.)
Dude, when are you in that big a hurry and NOT on the way to a fire already?
When I'm GETTING AWAY from a fire!
http://jesus.everdense.com/
They're illegal? Now that I know that I'll be sure to not use mine!
The amusing thing is, in England, merely flashing your headlights does this. My driving instructor told me and I tested it on many occasions, and it works like a charm.
They already do that. They're called proximity detectors, and they determine when cars are sitting on top of them. They work based on induction.
Sometimes you can see where they were embedded in the road, especially if the light was retrofitted. Look for a patched-over hole in the pavement directly underneath where the first car would pull up at a stop light.
That is why some lights only change when your car is sitting there. For additional fun, you might be caught behind some dingus who, for some reason, stopped too far back to trigger the sensor. You're going to be there a while.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
These things are no joke and I hope this bill gets through.
It goes like this:
1) Fire department installs special racks atop their fire engines. Fire department allows qualified paintball players who pay a fee (say, $100/mo. for unlimited rides) to ride along in these racks.
2) As the engines go zooming through the city, a bottleneck appears. It seems some assmunch of a driver is refusing to get out of the way for fear of losing his precious spot in the mad dash to get to the freeway.
3) Traffic Decency Guardians (aka TDGs) unleash a hail of accurate paintball fire at the offending motorist. The paintballs are colored bright purple, or perhaps a mixture of purple and orange. They are not water-soluble. They do mark said motorist as a complete assmunch, so other motorists are sure to treat the offender accordingly.
4) Violations of right-of-way rules plummet. Paintballers everywhere compete for selection as TDGs. The fire department finally has enough money to get that extra ladder they've always needed. Everyone wins.
Except the guy with purple paint all over his car. ;-)
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Opticom is 3M's solution for priority/preemptive right of way control--it has two modes, depending on what type of traffic you are. One is the "priority" right of way. If you're sitting at an intersection, and the light is red, and this comes up, you will get a shorter red, or a longer green light time when you're coming upon the light and it's green. This was kinda designed for public transit (e.g., buses), where idle time costs the city money in fuel.
The next section is something called the pre-emptive right of way, where the traffic lights that are not the same path as the signal is coming from, get a red light. The reason for this, is so in case the vehicle can make a left turn without worrying about oncoming traffic.
The system works in two parts--one's a transmitter, the other's an receiver, and the system can be set for thousands of possible codes. (for vehicle identification). the odds of something like this working, right out of the box, is very small...you'd need to get a correct code, and hope that no one notices a lot of new entries when it logs.
There is a comapny that makes legitimate Opticom receivers, for 'testing' purposes...however, their testing eqipment is very limited. They do make handheld opticom transmitters, however, they'll only sell them to you if you're a law enforcement/governmnet agency.
I disable sigs...do you?
They should have designed the systems such that a trigger would cause the light to go RED in all directions. The cross traffic would stop, and any real emergency response vehicle could run the red, of course being given authority to do so in emergencies.
I'm surprised I haven't seen SPAM offering these thing yet.
All this talk about the cities being at fault for not designing a system that wasn't so easily "hacked"... You know what? That's not the problem. The problem is all the fucktards running around who have no regard for anyone else. The government gets to try to keep the rest of us happy due to a few idiots' actions, and it costs US money. I'm sick and tired of my tax dollars going toward the next mundane project because some script kiddies got together in daddy's garage and dedicated 2 days of their lives to perfecting a work around to the city traffic system. How the hell can you blame the cities? It's not exactly cheap to make something impenatrable to every kind of attack. There's definitely a steep curve to that, in fact. The PROBLEM is the people that buy the things, the people that manufacture the things, and every one of you 12 year old "M$ suX! Linux is t3h be57! D0wn w17h 7He gR33dY C0rP0ra7ion5!!!" fucktards who are so obsessed with the idea of anarchy and having a right to break anything that is breakable. Get a life. Grow up. And don't mess with my damn stoplights. I'm sick of paying for workarounds for your pointless and inconsiderate tampering. Get a job.
Easier solution -- with no technology.
I can turn red traffic lights green just by staring at them. The time required varies a bit from light to light, but eventually they all bend to my whim and turn from red to green.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
I used to be a paramedic and the lights don't work the way you guys thinks. It is a first come first serve type of operation. The first unit that trips the signal gets the green light, all other lights go red. All emergency vehicle drivers are trained to stop on red and then go. The two ambulance or fire truck has happened in the past. Alot of places lost emergency workers to this type of thing in the 50's and 60's. Now running thru a red light and hitting someone will get you personely sued.
The answer to traffic is telecommuting. Immense tax breaks should be given to businesses that allow their employees to telecommute at least three days a week. There is no reason for a room full of cubicles when those people could be working from home or somewhere else so they aren't all on the freeway at 7:30AM and 5:30PM.
Naturally, middle-management, in their rush to control everything and to expect their highly qualified and exhaustively interviewed employees to become irresponsible morons the moment they have left the room, will claim telecommuting cannot ever be approved and go on to schedule another meeting.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Much simplier approach, which is widely used here in Canada and
:)
in the most of Europe, is to embed sensors in a form of loops of wire
into the road on each side of the intersection. The loop can sense
the car directly above it, which allows streetlight controller to learn
the length of the line-up on every side and switch the lights accordingly.
Simple design rules
3.243F6A8885A308D313
*Cough* Bullshit
The Radiocommunications Agency (RA) owns the radio frequency spectrum in the UK. Its an agency of the Department of Trade and Industry.
The government has no control over the usage of infrared communications.
The "British Post Office" has nothing whatsoever to do with telecommunications in England, Scotland, or anywhere else. It did many years ago, before its telecoms and mail services were split up and privatized
Also - can you provide a reference for this laser broadcast technology? Why, for example, is it not in common usage?
Explanation of Traffic Signal Preemption (Stoplight Changing)
The normal operation of any traffic signal controlled intersection is designed for the maximum and efficient throughput of vehicular traffic.
Unfortunately, a common occurrence at any intersection is traffic back-up, which can require many signaling cycles to clear. Without the ability to change the operation of the traffic signals themselves, police and emergency response vehicles can also be forced to sit in traffic, thus dramatically increasing their response times to crime scenes and fire or medical emergencies.
Furthermore, even without heavy traffic, a police or emergency response vehicle entering a traffic signal controlled intersection at a high rate of speed places all motorists (and sometimes pedestrians) at extreme risk.
The MIRT is an optical communications system that allows equipped vehicles to alter the normal operation of traffic signals.
An overview of a typical scenario is as follows:
A fire truck is dispatched to an emergency.
The fire truck is equipped with multiple emergency warning lights and a siren... The fire truck is also equipped with a preemption transmitter, which, in operation, is a high intensity forward-facing strobe light that is flashing at a rapid rate - much faster than normal attention-getting lights on the fire truck.
When the fire truck approaches within 1,800 feet (line-of-sight) of a preemption-equipped traffic signal controlled intersection, the preemption detector (normally mounted on the cross-arm that suspends the traffic signal) "sees" the fire truck's preemption transmitter and locks onto its flashing strobe.
Once the traffic signal "sees" the fire truck, it begins to initiate a "preemption sequence" of the actual traffic signal that is different from normal operation.
If the fire truck already has a green light, the light will remain green. Any other direction that also has a green light (usually the opposite direction) will first get a yellow light, then red.
When all of the other directions are then red, and the fire truck's direction is the only one that is green, the left turn arrow will illuminate (if one exists), and a brilliant white flood lamp mounted near the traffic signal will begin to flash. This flood lamp tells the driver of the fire truck that he now has control of the intersection, and complete right-of-way.
If the fire truck has a red light, any other direction that has a green light will transition to yellow, then red. When all the directions (including the fire truck's) are red, the traffic signal facing the fire truck will then turn green, along with the left turn arrow (if one exists), and the brilliant white flood lamp will begin to flash.
Once the fire truck has passed through the intersection, optical communication with the preemption detector (on the traffic signal) is lost. At that time the traffic signal will default back to normal operation. Conversely, until the fire truck passes through the intersection, it will have a green light, regardless of the time duration.
If several intersections are within the 1,800 foot range of the fire truck's preemption transmitter, they will all respond accordingly to the above operational description.
These two geeks decided to go to lunch, and one of them volunteered to drive. They motored off, seatbelts on and laptops open. When they came to a busy intersection, geek 1, who was driving, ran the red light and didn't even flinch. Geek2 panicked and screamed, "Why'd you do that??" "Geek 1 told geek 2, "calm down...no issue...my brother drives like this and he never has any problems." Geek 2 does his best to accept this, and they continue on.
Another few blocks, and another intersection and another red light and through they go....geek 2 remains quiet, but he's backing up his laptop to his home server, just in case.
Next intersection and this time, the light is green....geek 1 stops. Geek 2 does a double take at the green light and asks geek 1 what he's doing "Why are you stopping?", to which geek 1 replies "Are you kidding? I'm not blowing this intersection on the green....my brother might be coming through here!"
Fire trucks in my area change the lights so that ALL 4 directions get RED. Then because they are an emergency vehicle, they can cross into the ongoing lane and pass all the normal traffic in the intersection. This wouldn't help normal people unless they had blinking lights and sirens on their cars.
The guy in the Andre the Giant-sized car. The guy with the traffic light changer.
And guess what: that's me, pal. Mr. Individualism Man. And I got a lot more individualism where that came from.
For starters, I want a device that will restart the movie in the theater when I arrive fifteen minutes late. You already saw that part? Screw you, I didn't! And if I like it, we're all gonna watch it again.
Then I want a telephone that, when there's a busy signal, dumps the other joker off the line and puts my more important call through with a terrifying ***Sqwonk!*** and the message, "Please hold the line - I'm patching the president through now."
I want my taxes cut, and yours raised! I want my bio-engineered grass to grow roots that sneak across the property line, strangle your grass's roots, and make mine the greenest yard on the block!
If you're a chick, I want to grope your tits, wash your head in a toilet, dangle you out a third story window, and still be the man you call governor in the morning. I want my shit not only not to stink, but to be in demand from florists on holidays and anniversaries.
Got a problem with any of that, you socialist? See how you like sitting at all the red lights I'm gonna throw your way.
I am presently working on a traffic tracking project that, in addition to other things, is for the purpose of tuning a city's traffic lights for efficiency.
At many of these intersections are video camera. They can record for a variety of purposes including accidents and even ticketing. But have you ever recorded yourself with a video camera and used an infrared remote? Did you know the light from the remote is very well displayed to the camera? IT IS!! Looks like a blinking strobe! CCDs pick up light differently than the human eye, so even though we can't see it as people, the watching video cameras can potentially see you!
The device may not be illegal, but using it might be! I'd recommend against it strongly.
If it were true, the above would be very interesting. But it's complete and utter bullshit.
First of all, the Post Office in the UK has had nothing to do with regulating e/m waves of any frequency since 1969.
Secondly, the BBC has not had a monopoly on broadcast radio in the UK since 1972. There are many more commercial, privately-owned stations than BBC stations across the country.
Thirdly, radio transmission by shining an infra-red vertically upwards? Hello? Moderators, are you smoking crack. Here's a few reasons why it couldn't work:
* Lower light frequencies, including infra-red light, are not scattered much by the atmosphere. That's why sunsets are red and the sky is blue: blue light is scattered all over the sky, red light passes more or less straight through.
* During the daytime at least, any infra-red signal from a scattered laser beam would be hopelessly swamped by infra-red coming from the sun (not to mention other IR sources in a city, i.e. anything hot)
* For this to stand a chance of working therefore, the laser beam would have to be very powerful. As noted above, the BBC's radio monopoly ended in 1972 and Post-Office regulation in 1969. Please tell me, what private individuals had access to powerful lasers in the 1960s? Dr Evil?
So please, moderators, don't mod up a story because it seems superficially plausible. Stop and think about it for a bit. 5 minutes Googling is usually sufficient to establish veracity.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
This device does not need a specific ban, as it probably is already illegal to use except in limited circumstances. Think about it. If you turn your traffic lights to green, it stands to reason that you are turning the other road's lights to red. This would almost certainly constitute "interfering with the progress of other road users without due cause" -- the same catch-all that makes it an offence to park too near an intersection. Therefore, using this device probably already contravenes most countries' Highway Codes, and does not need a specific law against it. "Authorised users" would simply mean anyone who has due cause to interfere with other road users, i.e. fire engines, abulances &c. Ting! Next, please.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
You can just put a strong magnet on the bottom of your bike. I have an old hard drive magnet on the frame of my Sporty and it works great! Don't even need to glue it on. You ever try to pull one of those off of a refrigerator?
Never multiply an equation without necessity.
Thanks, jackass. We have porn-monitoring software at my workplace, and I probably just got tagged.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").