Who needs traffic lights...

[LittleRedNinjette]

Link to original page on YouTube.

And some people can't even get it right WITH lights.

[csmith12]

Looks like my little cousin's ant farm. lol

[LittleRedNinjette]

I was thinking it looked like an ant farm too.

[CZroe]

Notice: No accidents!

That's a much lower proportion of two-wheeled vehicles than I would have expected, especially with so many resorting to walking. I guess it's either cage or no wheels at all there.

[Flying]

Originally Posted by CZroe

Notice: No accidents!

<2 Minutes is too small of a sample, even if the video is sped up.

[NevadaWolf]

Seems like in April, this video went viral (though it is two years old). The sites highlighting it are all giving the same report though I can't find the source:

between 2004-06, the intersection was the site of 237 major accidents.

Still, interesting to watch.

[Hero Danny]

hahaha thanks for sharing this is hilarious!

One problem with lights is when the light is green people feel entitled and don't bother to look for traffic and just push through, and when a light is yellow people go as fast as they can to get by without getting stuck at the light. With this system (as crazy as it looks) it appears that everyone is on high alert and not in a huge rush to get through..

Very interesting though, really puts things into perspective.

Originally Posted by NevadaWolf

between 2004-06, the intersection was the site of 237 major accidents.

Still, interesting to watch.

Never mind, hahaha just saw that comment. I guess people will be impatient no matter what.

[akima]

Originally Posted by Hero Danny

One problem with lights is when the light is green people feel entitled and don't bother to look for traffic and just push through, and when a light is yellow people go as fast as they can to get by without getting stuck at the light. With this system (as crazy as it looks) it appears that everyone is on high alert and not in a huge rush to get through..

I think your comment holds true despite the statistic that wolf provided.

I'm not a fan of traffic lights: I'm always observing people gunning it to the yellow and gunning it from the green (self included sometimes ). Traffic lights are economically, extremely inefficient.

I'd love to see an example of 2 otherwise identical roads going to the same destination, one with roundabouts and non-light controlled junctions and the other road with intersections and light-controlled junctions. I'd put my money on the roundabout one being far more popular and far more efficient (in terms of time and energy consumption) and I expect there would be less accidents on the round-about road too.

I know of one case in England (Oxford) where the inner-city road system was deliberately sabotaged by the local government using traffic lights to try and slow everything down and congest the city. They did this to reduce traffic, presumably to reduce noise pollution and CO2 output in that area.

From a psychological perspective. I find it far less stressful to navigate roads that don't have traffic lights. That intersection in the video wouldn't bother me. I'd just control my vehicle as I had to, obeying local conventions and monitoring for dangers to myself and others. I expect that almost everyone else would be doing the same thing.

Originally Posted by csmith12

Looks like my little cousin's ant farm. lol

Originally Posted by LittleRedNinjette

I was thinking it looked like an ant farm too.

+1!

[Hero Danny]

Originally Posted by akima

I think your comment holds true despite the statistic that wolf provided.

I'm not a fan of traffic lights: I'm always observing people gunning it to the yellow and gunning it from the green (self included sometimes ). Traffic lights are economically, extremely inefficient.

I'd love to see an example of 2 otherwise identical roads going to the same destination, one with roundabouts and non-light controlled junctions and the other road with intersections and light-controlled junctions. I'd put my money on the roundabout one being far more popular and far more efficient (in terms of time and energy consumption) and I expect there would be less accidents on the round-about road too.

I know of one case in England (Oxford) where the inner-city road system was deliberately sabotaged by the local government using traffic lights to try and slow everything down and congest the city. They did this to reduce traffic, presumably to reduce noise pollution and CO2 output in that area.

From a psychological perspective. I find it far less stressful to navigate roads that don't have traffic lights. That intersection in the video wouldn't bother me. I'd just control my vehicle as I had to, obeying local conventions and monitoring for dangers to myself and others. I expect that almost everyone else would be doing the same thing.




+1!

I forgot about the rotaries, yes, those work VERY well. We have a bunch in MA and I love em, never any issues at all. As long as people know how to use them properly...

[akima]

Originally Posted by Hero Danny

I forgot about the rotaries, yes, those work VERY well. We have a bunch in MA and I love em, never any issues at all. As long as people know how to use them properly...

Yeah, good point!

[CZroe]

That accident rate seems lower than an intersection processing similar volume with traffic lights.

[MrAtom]

The roundabouts where I live are always put in places that would seriously benefit from something like a light or a stop sign to break up traffic in other areas, allowing people to get onto the road from another road or from their homes. And, they're always like half the size of a curb, and since they're just a concrete disc, I just plow right over it when nobody's around.

[alex.s]

wtfcopter