Those who use the bike know this very well: in the city, speeding motorists overtaking other cars, only get one thing: they arrive first to the next red.
With a simple model, the author estimated the probability that one car that overtakes another, will then be reached again at a later red light. Then he estimated the probability that the same thing will happen when there are multiple successive traffic lights, as usual in the cities.
The result is that as fast as an aggressive driver goes, the presence of multiple traffic lights makes it virtually certain that a slower driver will catch up
So, if someone aggressively overcomes you, when you reach him at the next traffic light, you can tell him that it is mathematically proven that he/she is an idiot.
In addition, this study has implications for the 30 km/h city, demonstrating how in urban areas the traffic lights determine the travel times, not the maximum speed reachable between one traffic light and the next.
The original scientific article is here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/4/260310/481212/The-Voorhees-law-of-traffic-a-stochastic-model
crossposted from: https://poliversity.it/users/rivoluzioneurbanamobilita/statuses/116419204210303856
Again, making assumptions about what every light will be like. Different places installed different things at different times. Sensors fail. Programming gets updated and introduces errors. My city has a dozen or-so painted cross-walks at intersections that work as I’ve described previously, and without any buttons for pedestrians to push to make the light change; Those lights will NEVER change for a pedestrian at night. The “exceptions” laws stay on the books for many different reasons, reasons that will likely never go-away.
Literally no-one here is arguing against “bike holding areas”(?), but if you want to argue there should never be exceptions, exceptions made to accomodate bikes and pedestrians of all things, you’re gonna have a bad time.
Again?
It’s a fair assumption, for the last 70 years electric capacitance sensors (metal detectors) have been a tiny fraction of the cost and complexity of weight sensors. I have never seen a weight sensor at traffic lights in any of the three countries I have driven in. Roads don’t last 70 years, weight sensors on roads are lucky to last 20 years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light doesn’t see fit to mention any sensors other than inductive loop (metal detectors) and the long list of related things on that page don’t include alternative sensors, though video sensors do also exist
No way does Germany use anything other than inductive loop detectors, unless they have Netherlands style AI camera systems to change lights before the vehicle arrives
And a search on what technologies Germany uses resulted:
Weight is not included, no surprise to me as it’s so expensive to maintain
I live in the midwestern US. There you go assuming things again. Although, considering how much sanity and common-sense have anything to do with the decision-making of the powers-that-be in this brave, beautiful land, you’ve got me wondering if we’re neighbors, or you could be, idk, my mayor?
That said, the traffic light situation in my town seems insane at times, but if I visit the nearest larger cities in any cardinal direction, the streets and traffic alone make me glad to come back home, so I guess you can keep knocking it out of the park and throwing facts of negligible-relavence to me in this thread, Mr. Mayor from Aussie-land.