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Unintended Consequences For Traffic Safety Feature
An anonymous reader writes: Traffic engineers had a problem to solve: too many pedestrians were getting hit by cars while using the crosswalks at intersections because they didn't know when the 'WALK' sign would change. Their solution was simple: implement a countdown timer. Countless cities have now adopted these timers, but it turns out to have an undesired consequence: motor vehicle crashes are actually increasing at intersections where the countdown timer is used. Researchers think this is because pedestrians aren't the only ones who see the timers. Drivers see them too, and it provides them with information on when the light will change. Then they anticipate the change by either speeding up to beat a change to red light, or anticipating a green light in order to get through before the pedestrians can move into the road. The researchers suggest finding some way to hide the countdown from the drivers, perhaps through the use of an audio countdown that would be difficult to hear from inside a car.
It has helped. Can you not read or something?
So the opposite of "not helped", it worked just fine.
However, in addition to reducing the number of pedestrian accidents it also increased the number of rear-end collisions.
Then you also take away opportunities to be a gentleman. :(
Good. I've seen drivers behaving as "gentlemen" inadvertently cause a considerable number of near misses. Not as many as asshats cause, but quite a few. The thing is, drivers should be predictable. It might appear courteous to let someone out of a side road, but it's not usual. As soon as you start behaving differently from everyone else on the road, you cause a degree of confusion. And confusion among drivers is sometimes lethal.
So next time you're tempted to be unnecessarily courteous, don't. The driver you want to let out of the side road will get out just the same in a minute or so, and there will be reduced opportunity for confusion among other drivers around you. The most gentlemanly and considerate thing to do overall is to drive predictably, and hopefully self driving vehicles will improve that.