Hello. Can someone help with this question? I wil eternally grateful. :) Read th

Question

Hello. Can someone help with this question?

I wil eternally grateful. :)

Read the article titled "Misapplied Physics in the International Standards that Set Yellow Light Durations Forces Drivers to Run Red Lights". The paper is available in Blackboard as a Reading, and is also available at: http: //redlightrobber.com/red/links_pdf/Misapplied-Physics-Red-Light-Cameras.pdf. Do you agree with the authors? Write a summary of the arguments/theory put forth by the authors and your critique of and/or agreement with their arguments. Your write-up of the summary + critique + support should be at least 400 words and MUST BE TYPED. You may also find this document useful: http: //redlightrobber.com/red/links_pdf/Yellow-Light-Duration Derivation.pdf and you may find the website in general a rather interesting take on this problem: http: /redlightrobber.com/.

Explanation / Answer

Yeah I totally agree with authors. The traffic engineers that set the yellow light durations are in opposition to law of motion. According to law of inertia "A body tends to be in state of rest or in state of motion unless and until it is disturbed by an external force". a car of vehicle while moving tends to be in state of motion unless it is deaccelerated at high rate. at traffic signals the light changes from green to yellow , during this duration the vehicles are in state of motion and human brain is in inactive mode. When light changes to yellow,the activation mode starts and in such a very short duration of time the light turns red. As a result due to small time duration and more reflex time the vehicle overtakes the signal.

The formula used by the engineers assumes that the drivers know all the precise location of critical distance which is not at all possible. The formula dosenot provide any margin of error, it also provides half the time to stop. The assumed speed limit is 35 mph but in reality the allowable speed limit is 45 mph.

Also the speed limit which seperates the bottom 85% from top 15 % of freely flowing vehicle speeds is wrongly assumed. The spped that engineers post is the one they measure for a level road at peak-hour traffic. The conditions from place to place differ, sometimes the road is not leveled , traffic density at off hours also affect the speed limit.

The Perception time used by the ITE i.e 1 second is also quite less as comparewd to AASHTO specificatons i.e 2.5 sec. In the case of traffic engineering the game is of yellow light , more the cycle spends on yellow less will be the time spend on green as a result the traffic flow will be less. So in order to increase traffic flow they reduce the yellow cycle to half. A mid way between to this can be increasing the yellow light duration by 25%.

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