Sometimes and idea comes along that is so simple you can’t believe you haven’t seen it before. This prototype traffic signal in Quebec is red by default, and it will only turn green if its radar detects an approaching vehicle that is traveling at or below the speed limit.
Signal creator Kalitec calls the signal EARL for “Educational Awareness Reward Light (in French it is called FRED for “feu de ralentissement éducatif”). The test signal has been installed near a school in Brossard, Canada, to enforce the 30 km/h (about 19 mph) speed limit there. It’s sort of serving the function of a speed hump, but without the hump.
StreetsblogMASS reported on the signal with the headline “Steal This Idea”:
The FRED light in Brossard is being tried out for a 90-day trial period on Rue Stravinski, a two-lane street that runs through a suburban residential area.
Before the light was installed, Mayor [Doreen] Assaad said that Rue Stravinski had average vehicle speeds of 40 km/h (25 mph). But in the past week, average speeds have dropped to 29 km/h (18 mph). […]
“Fines might be effective, but it’s effective after-the-fact,” says Mayor Assaad. “The beauty of FRED is we reward good behavior, and it’s immediate. It doesn’t record any private information, it just detects that the vehicle is coming and measures its speed. So it’s a carrot instead of a stick.”
Watch it in action in this Kalitec promo video:
This signal has me thinking about several implications:
- Could this be used in places that don’t allow speed ticketing cameras but do allow red light ticketing cameras? Because if this can get bureaucratic approval as a legal red light, that could be a much easier path than getting state legislatures across the nation to approve speed cameras.
- I would likely prefer a full speed hump where possible since it physically restricts speeds and requires essentially no ongoing maintenance. However, there are situations where speed humps are difficult (either practically or politically), such as near fire stations or along major bus routes. This could be a compromise solution in those places.
- I could see these being valuable for freeway off-ramps to help counter “velocitation,” which is that crawling feeling you get when you slow down after being accustomed to traveling quickly. Where 20 mph does not feel so slow at the start of a drive, it feels extremely slow after traveling at freeway speeds for a while. This effect leads people to drive too fast immediately after exiting a freeway because they don’t feel like they are speeding due to the velocitation effect. A speed-activated signal is an interesting solution to this problem.
- One potential downside to this signal is that I’m not sure it is compatible with a crosswalk. Giving someone a green light tells them that they don’t need to stop. If you put a crosswalk in, you’d also need the pedestrian signal, which would need to go through the whole countdown process before the green light could be activated, and all that probably negates the point of these things. What I’d really like to see are pedestrian-priority signals that default to the walk signal and only change to green when a vehicle is detected, sort of the like the reverse of those signals that only go red if a crosswalk user pushes the button.
- Ultimately, the real value of these things will be entirely based on how much it costs. If cities can just plop down a solar-powered device and paint a couple stop lines, then I could see it being a fairly cheap and quick tool for calming traffic. But if it ends up being an expensive install, then more traditional hard-scaped traffic calming (like speed humps, curb bulbs, traffic islands, bike lanes, etc) will likely remain the better choice for most situations.
I would love to see some place in the U.S. test an EARL-style signal, which is the first step toward getting it approved for wider use. Seattle has a long history of trying out new traffic control concepts, and we unfortunately have no shortage of streets near schools where people drive too fast.
Comments
8 responses to “This Quebecois traffic signal only turns green if it detects someone driving within the speed limit”
Great idea ! I really like that, potentially, it could be coupled with red light cameras and citations.
I’m fine with speed humps but completely disagree about speed bumps. For example, yesterday, I biked on Fremont N near 125th. It has two full width speed bumps per block. After about 10 blocks of that, my neck and wrists were not happy. SDOT needs to realize cars have shocks, most bikes don’t. If they put in humps with a small gap in between, fine.
The idea is good, but the execution is lacking. Many drivers won’t notice the signal because it’s off to the side and there’s nothing in the roadway design suggesting that one might need to stop there. Pairing it with a painted stop line and flex post curb bulb (like the one here: https://goo.gl/maps/mN77uGZCvU5784yL8) would be relatively cheap, would provide a better visual cue to drivers, and would allow the signal to be moved into the road where it can be better seen.
My worry in Seattle is that this will lead to drivers seeing these red lights as optional and going through them at speed anyways.
Red light cameras could help but in my experience the kind of people willing to go through a red light also generally have fake temporary tags or no tags at all or simply don’t care that they’re racking up thousands in tickets because they know they will never be held accountable to paying them.
These best-efforts only work in cases where violating traffic law has consequences.
If we paired this with the ability to impound vehicles (i.e. those with fake or no plates) or better yet seize them in egregious cases of repeat offenses.
Of course this being Seattle it would be “problematic” to enforce the law in any way. Alas more law-abiding cyclists and pedestrians shall die at the hands of those deemed unaccountable for their actions.
Round-a-bouts provide an even better calming effect and make it impossible to ignore. The city of Carmel Indiana has over 150 of them and the community loves them. They calm traffic, increase the through put (traffic volume) and stop almost all injury collisions and all fatal collisions involving two vehicles. They have no maintainence and reduce CO2 immissions becasue vehicles generally can continue forward there momentum at intersections instead of sitting andd idling for 2-3 minutes. Here is a study by Indiana University on the Carmel experience: https://eri.iu.edu/erit/case-studies/carmel-indiana-roundabouts.html
Roundabouts with even a moderate amount of traffic are a nightmare for pedestrians, since the drivers are only looking to the left for oncoming traffic. Good luck if you’re trying to cross from the right. This is basically the same problem as turning right on red, which the city is in the process of restricting as noted by Tom in a recent post.
I saw a variation on this in a small town in Spain back in 2012. There was a series of 3 or 4 lights spaced out along a stretch of main road that passed thru the edge of town. The lights defaulted to green but turned red quickly if a car approached at over the limit. Drivers then got to sit at the red light cooling their heels waiting for no one but themselves.
Indeed, and another strategy is to use radar monitors to turn lights red ahead in the road *in advance* of speeding. So that, if the radar detects somebody driving 10, 15, 20 over, it turns the next light red automatically. This has the added benefit of creating social pressure to drive safely.
You can also tie this to the red light camera system, but legal reforms in state law are needed in that arena: the registered owner of the car needs to be held responsible for the violations, without exception, just like in the case of parking tickets where we can’t “prove” who parked the car. We also need to have mandatory vehicle impoundment and, perhaps, mandatory vehicle destruction for people who obscure their license plates.
West Seattle likely saw the biggest statewide sales by neighborhood of license plate-covering bike racks back during the bridge closure, when tickets were dispensed on the lower Spokane Street bridge. Seriously. Just riding by on a bike or a bus on that bridge and you could count dozens of cars with empty bike racks crossing that bridge, illegally and anti-socially.
All of these are splendid ideas that will save lives, but, again we are reminded of Roger Millar’s comments, about how we know what will work, but we refuse to do anything whatsoever that will in any way inconvenience a driver.
It’s wild that if there are no consequences for breaking the law, people break the law more frequently. Who would ever have guessed?