You know I love my Incands but check this: LED traffic lights kill people

fenix-store
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

Just goes to show: You cant fix stupid!
If you cant see the lights do you just carry on or use caution?
If light goes out at summer is the situation different than snow in the winter?
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

They tried out some LED traffic lights around here about a decade ago as well. They went back to incans, I assume for the same reason as the article states, snow piling onto the LED lights and not melting off.
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

We also have a LED traffic light in our town and the thing is so bright you can actually see it from a couple of miles away.

The pro side is that you can see the light even if the sun is at a really bad angle. With the old incans you couldn't tell if it was red or green.

On the con side is that the designers forgot to put an ambient light sensor in the thing, because it's just as bright at night and that makes it really hard to see past the traffic light itself.

The snowed in traffic light is a non issue, because if the traffic light is out for whatever reason, power outage for example, the traffic signs apply and if there are no signs it's simple right before left (at least here in Germany).


Markus
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

I don't buy it. The article says that the crash occurred "during a storm", and it is implied to be a snowstorm since they go on to say that the light was covered by snow. Had the driver been going an appropriate speed for the conditions, there should not be enough speed to cause a fatality. Blame driver inattention or excessive speed, but don't blame the traffic light. This is simply a diversion for the offending driver to shed some blame.
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

No it is a real design problem with LED's. No one thought of the snow problem, and now Lisa Richter is dead because of LED traffic lights. It's similar to the insane design of CFL's that have highly toxic Mercury in the ballast if it is broken.

They should ban LED's.
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

It01Firefox said:
The snowed in traffic light is a non issue, because if the traffic light is out for whatever reason, power outage for example, the traffic signs apply and if there are no signs it's simple right before left (at least here in Germany).
Click to expand...

Correct - at least in Norway. I would guess those rules would apply pretty much to most of the globe....

Did any of you read the reader's comments below the linked article? Hillarious... Made me spill my coffee.... Someone is apparantly using alternatively logic ... or they could very well be trolling. Or how do you like this logical conclusion:

Fact: "LEDs save millions of dollars in energy and maintenance cost, but don't produce enough heat to melt snow that sticks to the lens." So, it is therefore only logical to conclude that . . . Chinese products are junk. The human capacity for reasoning is absolutely amasing ...
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

jankj said:
Correct - at least in Norway. I would guess those rules would apply pretty much to most of the globe....
Click to expand...

Yes, that is the rule in the states as well. If the other person who hit her did not see the light was red, then she did not see the light, and she was legally obligated to treat the intersection as a four way stop. Case closed.
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

LuxLuthor said:
They should ban LED's.
Click to expand...
LOL.

There are 40,582 threads in the LED Flashlights section. It'll take me a while to close all of them. The 1,699 in the LED section shouldn't take quite so long.
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

LuxLuthor said:
No it is a real design problem with LED's. No one thought of the snow problem, and now Lisa Richter is dead because of LED traffic lights. It's similar to the insane design of CFL's that have highly toxic Mercury in the ballast if it is broken.

They should ban LED's.
Click to expand...

The mercury is not in the ballast, it's in the tube. Mercury is the source of light in a fluorescent lamp, so you can reduce the amount of mercury, but not eliminate it.

Maybe we should add a hidden incandescent bulb into each LED traffic light to generate heat and melt the snow off. :devil:
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

I've only seen a partly blocked LED traffic light once, and we get plenty of snow around here... I gues some cities are windier than others, but wouldn't a simple lens angled downward fix the problem?
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

LuxLuthor said:
No it is a real design problem with LED's. No one thought of the snow problem, and now Lisa Richter is dead because of LED traffic lights. It's similar to the insane design of CFL's that have highly toxic Mercury in the ballast if it is broken.

They should ban LED's.
Click to expand...

I can't tell if this whole post is sarcastic or not... I think I need some coffee.
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

LuxLuthor said:
No it is a real design problem with LED's. No one thought of the snow problem, and now Lisa Richter is dead because of LED traffic lights.

They should ban LED's.
Click to expand...

It's a design problem not an LED problem. Simply slapping LED's into similar designs does make the problem of lights being obscured worse. (I say worse not created a new problem because even with incans and their IR spewing filaments, I've experienced obscured traffic signals. In fact even with constantly on, higher power headlights I've experienced icing issues before.) Bad design doesn't make it solely an LED problem it's an LED implementation problem. Engineering can deal with the weakness. Maintenance labor costs and power are still the dominant cost in the system. Slightly higher fixed costs for a more complicated design can still be made up. Even if they used an active heating element during cold periods, and the resultant fixture used as much power as the incan it replaced, there would still be power savings (it's not always below freezing) and huge labor savings.

Ultimately there is a control in place for all of the reasons a traffic light fails. Whether it's a light obscured by ice and snow, an incan bulb that burned out before the next replacement cycle, or a loss of power, if you can't see the signal you stop.
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

was.lost.but.now.found said:
I don't buy it. The article says that the crash occurred "during a storm", and it is implied to be a snowstorm since they go on to say that the light was covered by snow. Had the driver been going an appropriate speed for the conditions, there should not be enough speed to cause a fatality. Blame driver inattention or excessive speed, but don't blame the traffic light. This is simply a diversion for the offending driver to shed some blame.
Click to expand...
I happen to agree with this.
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

It01Firefox said:
Yes and they should also ban power outages, because they affect traffic lights no matter what the emitter is.
Click to expand...

I am not sure where you live, but when the power goes out here in dallas, our traffic lights blink red.
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

neal71 said:
I am not sure where you live, but when the power goes out here in dallas, our traffic lights blink red.
Click to expand...

In most of greater St. Louis when the power goes out the traffic lights go out. When it comes back on, they sometimes then will blink red until they are manually brought back on line by someone from the traffic dept.
 
Re: You know I love this: LED traffic lights kill people

When ours go out they are totally out. Incan or LED.

I don't give a flyin' crap if the traffic signal is a gerbil suspended above the road and holding colored flash cards, when you get your drivers license you take a test and to pass that test you have to know what to do when the signal is out. For those of you that can't remember anymore you are supposed to treat it as a 4 way stop.

Her ignorance killed her, not the traffic signal.

Why is this in the general flashlight section anyway?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

K
Modifying my new shop lights
Replies
4
Views
434
Kitchen Panda
K
J
Today I Learned: There Are Dimmable LED Lights Bulbs That Have Built In Battery Back Up
Replies
10
Views
568
JAS
J
K
Pot lights from halogen to LED and DC driver
Replies
2
Views
288
Kitchen Panda
K
D
mystery 4-head LED lamp
Replies
0
Views
575
Dave_H
D
J
Parabolic satellite dish LED lamp
Replies
1
Views
555
PhotonWrangler
PhotonWrangler

Latest posts

Top