Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) technology is being developed by Ford, and it could see the end of traffic lights, a reduction in congestion and reduced accident rates.
All too often, a car manufacturer makes a statement which could amount to a step toward a motoring utopia, only to then clarify that ‘this is our future goal’, or words to that effect.
Ford Motor Company have recently made such a statement – that the use of their technology could see the end of traffic lights, it may well reduce congestion, which in turn will see pollution levels diminish, and of course, a reduction in accident rates. Only this was more than a statement.
UK Autodrive
As part of the government-backed UK Autodrive programme, Ford has been demonstrating their new ‘Intersection Priority Management’ (IPM) system in Milton Keynes.
Essentially, the system allows connected cars to send and transmit data such as location, speed and the direction they’re travelling in to similarly equipped cars in the same vicinity, which then advises the driver of the optimum speed to navigate other vehicles or junctions without stopping, of course, the ultimate goal is to use this software as part of a suite of full-autonomy functions.
Ford says that it’s based on how humans negotiate crowded areas instinctively – it just happens, with no sudden stops or emergency avoidance action, and more importantly, little congestion.
Christian Ress, supervisor with the Driver Assist Technologies at the Ford Research & Advanced Engineering says: “With the connected car technology we have been demonstrating in Milton Keynes this week, Ford envisage a world where vehicles are more aware of each other and the environment they’re in, which will enable intelligent cooperation and collaboration on the road networks”.
Traffic lights
Research shows that on average, a motorist will spend two years of their life waiting at traffic lights, so any reduction in that time would not only be welcome but could be beneficial to the environment. It’s thought that reducing the time spent waiting at traffic lights would have a demonstrable effect on congestion, which in turn would, of course, help to lower city pollution levels. Maybe this could be part of the solution to end the spread of congestion charging?
Ford’s own research also says that road junctions cause up to 60% of Road Traffic Collisions (RTCs), so vehicles fitted with the Intersection Priority Management system will be inherently safer, with the software analysing the trajectory and speed of any vehicle around it.
In theory, this all sounds like an incredibly simple yet effective solution, but of course there are some flaws; for this to work as Ford intend, each and every vehicle on the road must be fitted with it, or a system that’s compatible with it, and presently, it still relies on the most unreliable link in the system – the human element.
Until vehicles are fully autonomous, there will always be an element of a driver believing that their judgement (or need) is greater than anyone else’s, or an indecisive driver that would prefer to leave a bigger gap than the computer says is necessary. It will never be able to counter the human element until it’s removed from the equation.
V2V and V2X
Vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) connectivity aren’t new, most manufacturers are working on their own proprietary versions of a system, but it won’t be arriving at a dealership anytime soon, or at least not in such an advanced state.
In all likelihood, it’s doubtful that we’ll see systems as this being commonplace for a decade or so; it’s all very well one manufacturer showing off their capability, but until there is a unified set of protocols between manufacturers, that’s all it can ever be – a showcase for a manufacturer. Certainly, there are brands that have introduced limited self-driving capabilities on their vehicles, but think of them as a DVD in a digital streaming world – the technology works well to a degree, but at a fraction of what’s needed to make it a viable reality for the world.
We shouldn’t discount driver habit or education either – we’ve been taught to drive on principles based around the human being the smartest decision maker, learning to give that control to a device or microchip simply can’t happen overnight, it will take years of trouble-free learning for that to happen as a natural progression to our driving habit.
Our world embraces technology, and it’s fascinating to see just what technologies are around the corner, but as technology changes, so must society, and perhaps that’s the hardest to change.
What do you think of this technology? Is there a better way to control traffic flow and congestion? Would you be able to let the system take control? Let us know in the comments.
Can you drive a modern car?
We all think we can drive, but if you pull away with your right foot on the accelerator, start saving for a new clutch!
Engine management will move you forward as you release clutch and brake in harmony. Then accelerate as needed.
Engines, and their components are all lighter in the quest for fuel economy and lower pollution.
Develop the modern pull away, save on fuel and be more in control – it works! Even on slippy surfaces.
Traffic lights are a nuisance, they cause delays and bottlenecks, they change colour when they feel like it and they treat motorists as if they haven’t got a brain. I do a lot of cycling and on my route there is always a stretch of road that is congested and slow because of traffic lights. Yesterday and the day before the lights were out of action and lo and behold, not a car to be seen, the road was completely clear with only one car carefully edging out of the side road. Believe it or not, motorists do behave with care and caution!
Only if you are driving a diesel. You will stall if you don’t use you right foot on the accelerator.
even diesels will stall easily now. all the electronics and different compression ratios etc mean a modern diesel stalls MUCH easier than the older pre electronic diesels
Well i dont know what car you drive but my electronic handbrake would never release unless im at bite point with accelerator and clutch. I just tried your idea on level ground.. and guess what.. my handbrake stays on and my car stalls on the spot . Your idea is a load of dog mess for a “modern” car !
utter rubbish. sitting on the brake with the clutch pressed is how you destroy a clutch. my own car (a ford as it happens) is a NIGHTMARE to set off without any revs above idle. it has an anti stall system (according to the manual) which either lets you set off on level or downhill gradients if it sees fit, or simply cuts the engine completely. i have NEVER had a car ‘stall’ so easily. in snow, at idle the car wont move AT ALL (i tried in the snow late 2017/early 2018) and the ONLY way to get moving was shut off the traction/stability control, get SOME wheelspin, get the car moving, then switch traction/stability control back on!
and for the record, i make my LIVING working on/repairing cars (time served mechanic with City and Guilds Level 3 qualification, a higher level at the time wasnt possible without progressing into mechanical engineering degrees etc) and have lived in areas in the North of England where roads are seldom, if ever gritted, snow drifts amazingly well, etc (in the wilds, where the lake district and yorkshire dales ‘meet’) so i would say ive more experience than most people my age of driving in poor weather conditions, and never ONCE had to rely on a 4×4
Can Ford chip pedestrians and cyclists too so that they obey traffic lights at the moment. Daily near misses are abundant in our cities now….
Since many junctions never give pedestrians any sort of green light or priority to cross they have to user the traffic lights as a guide as to where vehicles will be coming from before attempting to cross. Take away the traffic light at those junctions and there will be no way for pedestrians to cross the road at all. Limiting pedestrians further in an age of supposedly encouraging walking is a bit perverse
you must be joking,once a pedestrian presses the button it dosn’t matter how many car are going though the lights it altermatically changes to red.compared to the numbers of people involved you get a good deal.
Simply use zebra crossings
Where there is self-regulation, there is motion
Where there are traffic lights, there are queues
Nice Statement but false,
Self regulation has to be based on a fundamental mental state that everyone adheres too.
As we are all individuals all with individual driving skills/styles
So non adherence to the same mental state means more accidents, crashes and deaths.
Which again results in the same queues with one major difference with the lights you haven’t got the mashed up cars and dead bodies.
Every working day, I cross over a motorway junction that has had traffic lights all around it for a few years now These lights were supposed to operate only at peak times (to share the pain across all the converging and orbiting traffic), but they have actually been on 24/7 from the beginning. They definitely operate on the basis of reacting in opposition to approaching traffic – it’s a cool day in Hell when I cross over without being stopped at least once, no matter what time of day. A couple of weeks ago, these lights were switched off while being serviced one day and – would you believe it – all the traffic kept moving. Self regulation also means common sense – if the road is clear, keep moving, otherwise wait behind your white line until it clears – and no stopping on the roundabout, most importantly. The action of those particular lights is to artificially create congestion where none would otherwise exist. What’s more, the sheer weight of enforced stationary traffic on that motorway overpass at peak times has necessitated bridge repairs, a cost that could have been otherwise avoided. Some traffic lights make sense, I won’t argue with that, but others are perversely pointless.
I see cyclists go through red lights on a daily basis,some of them still think they don’t apply to them
I see cars speed up on orange and go through on red every time I go out driving! Never mind, Uber will soon be on us all!
This is called anecdotal evidence and is one of the least reliable forms of evidence. For every cyclist who ignores a red light, many more obey them (But you don’t notice them). For a cyclist, it is annoying to stop at a light controlled pedestrian crossing, only to have to brake hard for a jaywalking pedestrian, or a thoughtless driver opening a car door, without looking.
The best solution is to separate cars and pedestrians / cyclists, so that the pedestrians and cyclists are on an upper level with access to the open air and cars (electric) are on a lower level. Delivery vehicles and car parks would be on a sub-lower level. However, we need to rebuild our cities to do this, so it is a long way off.
I am like most cyclists also a driver and a pedestrian.
Good idea until someone buys a black market chip that allows, or affords them priority over others. Emergency vehicles would obviously be equipped with such technology and quite rightly so, but who or what will decide who has priority over others. At least with traffic lights one can see, but no one can see software or the electron.
Plus the legions from the ‘entitled brigade’ who think they are a special case, sounds more like a population reduction scheme,
What about pedestrian crossings?
There’ll still be the same number of cars unwilling to let pedestrians across the road.
Or we could just adopt the system used in the channel isles where cars at junction each take a turn to go through, so one car from each road goes through and then the next road and so on
This is the same as the American ‘4-way stop’, but that is only ever implemented on junctions of minor roads with relatively light traffic. It wouldn’t work here because it requires drivers to take their turn and behave in a civilised manner, which we are not good at (witness the free for all at ‘merge in turn’ sections of road).
At major intersections, you get light controlled equivalents where left turning traffic gets there own priority signal at some point rather than trying to jump a gap in traffic going straight over (in our case it would be traffic turning right). This works well and has actually been implemented in the UK in some locations including where I live (Bracknell) where a large roundabout interrupting a major through route has been replaced with just such a 4 way junction, mostly eliminating tail backs especially on the roads which were considered more minor, where you would be waiting for ages to get out against heavy traffic along the major road.
Seeing so many scare stories put out by vested bodies of all kinds you can see that unless we can be educated to see change and progress as a good thing and not to be feared we will not be able to enjoy the benefits of new technologies.
Remember the scre stories put out when the steam locomotives went more than 5 miles an hour for example.
As a famous man once said we spend most of our time worrying about things that will not happen.
I tell you what, steam trains were far more reliable than what we have today. Steam trains were reliable , there was no wrong type of leaves or snow and deep water and on average much faster and on time. Our rail performance has gone backwards since the change to diesel and electric.
Very interesting but how will it deal with other road users, pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders and off road vehicles, like tractors, that have the right to use the highway on a limited basis
Autonomy of anything will lead to lazy humans assuming the car etc knows best. Not great for the human race imho.
Yeah, look what happened with the introduction of SatNav. People trusting it like autopilot and getting stuck in narrow roads and bridges and they are still to this day. Plus just like anything electrical when it fails and it will because of weather, EMP or power outage everything goes to sh1t and nobody remembers how to use a pen and paper. Cant add up their shopping bill. forget how to read a map and now it seems forget how to use their eyes to judge distance and speed of other vehicles. I am not a Luddite but I do not think one should get too confident about relying on technology long term.
“It will never be able to counter the human element until it’s removed from the equation”
That single statement fills me with dread
The human element fills me with dread all the time – in things other than road users.
Don’t worry, 1984 has been and gone although I get the creepy feeling that things are much worse now!
1984 god i wish i was back there now
Human drivers fill me with dread often.
Come with me if you want to live…
i think it is wrong becaus there are gong to be moraxedants becaus i was coming at a junction by the traffic lights mine was on green as i whet a nothere car from the opisit nerly crash in to me becaus his lights was on red he jupt the red lights i was fuming so if there arnt traffic lights that could happen all the time you shuld consentrate on speed bumps & pot holes thank you
What???
I don’t think this guy should be driving. Do you? he he
The Traffic Management Act promotes the expeditious movement of Traffic, where Traffic includes pedestrians. What about the movement of pedestrians with a disability or sight impairment. Segregation or positive control will be an imperative element of any switch off scheme; trust me.
Remember Ford’s attempt at tyre production domination? No? Not surprising, it did not work. Neither will this bit of nonsense. Looked at Ford’s figures for electrical faults on their cars? What causes the most faults on the new Ford Focus? That is just in the production of it. It takes control of your cars speed when approaching a junction and matches it to a gap in the cross-flow traffic. I will be sat at my little side road junction from around 7.30am to 9.15am every weekday morning waiting for a gap then? Or does my device, after 15 mins of waiting, stop everything on the major road for me to get out? Next are those who don’t believe in it and insert a turn off switch, that will be fun!
Traffic lights cause delays and frustration because the sensors do not work as they should many times they are set incorrectly when lights are installed or renewed as the computer has no idea of local traffic flow. Many lights are not needed most of the time and could become part time lights and improve traffic flow. Whose idea it was to put traffic
lights on roundabouts which were first created so there was no need for traffic lights or a policeman on point duty to let traffic move at road junctions easily or freely
So right. You’ve said it all for me. The only extra comments I could make are, that although I loathe traffic lights on roundabouts , some are just too busy at peak hours .
We should also have a lot more “turn left when safe to do so” flashing amber arrows like they have in Ireland.
I hope to be off the road in five years or so . Already have bus pass at 60 and public transport is good where I live. Plenty of people say I am a good driver but I just hate it now. Too many blind junctions where people park on corners, too many non signallers….etc
More annoying for me is the roundabout where lights are needed but have not been installed. My commute used to involve travelling north on the A46 across the A420 roundabout. Bristol-bound traffic on the A420 westbound virtually monopolises the roundabout in the morning rush-hour, as it has priority, causing 3-mile northbound queues on the A46, adding 20-30 minutes to the journey for anyone going that way to the M4. The time spent in that queue (there’s no reasonable alternative for my circumstances – other than the train) was a major reason for me to change jobs. A part-time red light to create gaps for the A46 traffic would halve the queue in rush hour.
Traffic lights are put on roundabouts to increase the traffic capacity of the roundabout. They can also be used to include a phase to allow pedestrians to cross the road.
Good idea in principle, but foiled by the very druvers it was supposed to help. By having lights means cars nose bumper to bumper at peak periods to the next traffic light. This then stops and blocks the next ‘entry’ point to the roundabout. Multiply that by the number of entries and you have chaos. It once took me 40 monutes to get round a toundabout because of traffic lights on it, whereas previously it took 5 minutes ! I avoid that route like the plague now.
What, at 0300hrs when the roads are empty? Is there a round-a-bout anywhere in the country that needs lights 24hrs a day? I think that a lot of, if not most traffic lights could be removed.
If people negotiated a roundabout at 10 mph it would solve a lot of problems
Yes that’s right,there is a certain junction in leeds where the lights are at green for only about 5seconds,this encourages drivers to run through red lights due to frustration,to try and beat the lights before they go back to red,and inevitably some drivers end up going through on red,especially at peak times,as it is a very busy junction,the lights urgently need to be reset here
Roundabouts are almost obsolete as cars can take bends much faster than they used to…
Even without the ‘human factor’ it would be necessary for EVERYONE to have a new, or newish vehicle. This has never happened, and never will.
its rare to see cars on the road more than 20 years old, so i guess the time to implement this fully would be T+20, where T is when the technology is in dealers.
“Research shows that on average, a motorist will spend two years of their life waiting at traffic lights”. Just stop a minute, switch your brain on, and think about that statement. It’s clearly utter rubbish.
(Though you could possibly achieve that by driving a vehicle non-stop 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, from the moment of birth until you died aged 80, and spending 36 minutes per day every day stopped at traffic lights).
Thank you Lorna for pointing out the stupidity in the sentence you quoted. I agree with your sentiment and arithmetic.
Rubbish. If you work in Weybridge, on a good day, it will take you 30-40 minutes in the morning and 30-40 minutes in the evening to get to the M25 or A3. ON a bad day, an hour or more each way. Takes 5 minutes when it’s not busy. All caused by traffic lights, and sheer weight of traffic. So that’s 60 minutes a working day, plus. Also anyone tried driving in downtown London, Manchester, Birmingham and 20 other large conurbations, as most drivers do every day? Way more the 44 minutes a day looking at the car in front’s brake-lights. All because we want to sit in our nice safe warm little metal box (me included). Something’s got to give…
I’ve been doing some calculations too:
So 2 years of 24hour days [I assume] =17,520 hours.
I hour a day spent in traffic whilst at traffic lights let’s say.
If you did this every day of the year it would take 48 years to accomplish.
Factor in a 5 day working week working all 52 weeks of the year, it would take 67.38 years to accomplish.
Factor in a 5 day week with 28 days annual leave it would take 74 years to accomplish.
Not including sickness or absences.
Good luck with that.
Perhaps your first assumption is wrong and the “day” is a 7.5hr working day? Would mean your last figure can be divided by roughly 3
Wouldn’t it just be a lot easier to use the technology on improving the traffic lights and crossing systems!?
Barney. We could send out robots to fix traffic lights. We could actually dispense with cars to some extent because personal 🤖 robots could give us a piggyback to work. Other robots could be used as lollipop ladies, making every road in the entire country safe for kiddies to cross. We could send robots out to do the shopping, dispensing with the ridiculous idea of online shopping! All of this could be done but the government is too scared of vested interests such as tesco delivery drivers and traffic light repair men rising up to overthrow the Tories.
Have we learnt nothing from Terminator, iRobot and The Matrix? As soon as robots become sentient they’ll rise up and destroy the human race. Skynet is coming….
As Lorna says, “Utter rubbish”.
Manufacturers should spend their money on sensible safety measures rather than waste it on unworkable futuristic nonsense. Even if they could build a 100% reliable system (which is impossible) ALL vehicles in the World would have to be replaced overnight with the new system and ALL drivers in the World would have to be trained in it’s use. Again, overnight, as people travel Worldwide daily and drive in different countries daily.
It is then, clearly rediculous. As are self-driving vehicles!
John: I think you have missed the point that Lorna meant when she used the phrase ‘utter rubbish’. She meant the statement that on average a motorist would spend 2 years of his/her life waiting at traffic is utter rubbish and backed that up by a simple calculation ( which I checked and confirmed ) showing the overwhelming implausibility of the statement. Lorna did not comment for or against the idea of replacing traffic lights with futuristic technology.
That’s lovely, but what about cyclists and pedestrians, are we all to be retrofitted with this tech as well?
Yep
The aviation industry and many similar like rail already has this type of technology so the adopted standards, mindset and forward looking culture could be well adopted in the motor industry. Using a standard electrical bus for all interchangeable modules across all manufacturers could also make introducing these sorts system updates relatively easy across manufacturers and models. Of course it also requires car owners to have an open and considering mind but perhaps that’s too much to hope for as they are drawn from the pool of the general public.
difference is, cars are hacked fairly regularly (keyless entry/start systems for example), ive never heard of aircraft technology being hacked (im not saying it doesnt happen) but for most scenarios, what would be the point? most people can drive (whether legally allowed or not) where very few could ‘drive’ (term used deliberately) a plane, helicopter etc.
also by using a standard electrical bus in the cars, that would mean many more components having to be standardised, making them more readily available and much cheaper so car prices would have to be lower. it would also make generic diagnostic systems more useful (which was the point of EOBD diagnostic ports (or OBDII as its known in the USA i believe) but is still only applicable to certain areas of the vehicle, it should be applicable to the ENTIRE vehicle) but manufacturers are against it as they want to further rip you off in the dealerships.
This is brilliant because we wont have any cyclists on our roads or any vintage or classic cars or motorbikes, in the world according to ford such vehicles will not exist. Sorry I just realised I’ve got my cynical head on today…
Until this technology is proven, we could save a lot of fuel, delays and frustration by allowing drivers to turn LEFT at a RED traffic light providing they stop for 3 seconds to confirm there is no traffic bearing down on them from the RIGHT. How often have you sat waiting for a GREEN, wasting fuel, when it would have been perfectly safe to turn LEFT? This works very well in the USA…
Absolute load of rubbish
Ok, so classic cars and old pre-technology bangers will have to be adaptable?
Like someone else said, what about pedestrians and cyclists?
The pollution will be a moot argument going forward as all cars will have to be zero emission before anything like this is able to be developed, tested and introduced.
Who comes up with these crazy ideas? Oh! Ford Motor Company.
You still will need lights to let people cross the road safely
Traffic lights. What a load of rubbish. Can ony happen, if it can happen, if EVERY CAR HAS THE SYSTEM!!! What about old cars and people who ignore the info the system gives out. After all people jump the lights and ignore them now!!.
What a load of rubbish La La Ford land again!!!!
When driving in and out of town in the evening we would often stop at traffic lights – especially at roundabouts – when there are far fewer cars around. Wouldn’t the technology be better used to stop traffic lights operating during light traffic flow to allow us erratic and unreliable humans to make our own, seemingly dangerous, decisions to negotiate the road? We’d burn far less unnecessary fuel, pollution and frustration levels would drop, and each time we travel it would knock a good 15 minutes off of our wasted 2 years.
If we must get rid of traffic lights, I suggest using the system taken in Sweden in a town called Alingsas.Keeps the human factor and not the robot factor alive, If you come to a junction then the rule is you give way to the car coming from the right, a bit like roundabouts. And it worked.
priority to the right is used in most European countries and leads to many accidents as you cannot always see a car approaching from the right but you must give way to it anyway because it will emerge blind suddenly.
For this reasi=on traffic lights on roundabouts are popular and safer.
Round-a-bouts are only popular with local authorities road planners and motorists that have never been taught correctly how to use them. Some people like have decisions like when to stop and when to go taken from them.
Just how can the statement that an average motorist spends 2 years of their life waiting at traffic lights be true? This equates to 8760 hours – what nonsense!
Will aid “road pack” with vehicles, such that when things go wrong, which they will, the worst gridlocks ever known will arise.
It”s a great idea in a utopian world where everyone obeys the laws and doesn’t become impatient (which should be the case) but we see daily those who think the road is their private highway. If it was really perfect then yes I would use it, but that is a big “if”. We also see vehicles that are decades old. And as has been mentioned what about pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders, not to mention the domesticated and wild animals that use our streets. Are Ford and the other car manufacturers going to provide roads just for motor vehicles? I think not.
It will need some legislation to ensure that all manufacturers work to common equipment and software standards.
What will happen to my current two old cars that are still in good order and hopefully have years of life left in them? Retrofit some electronic wizardry? Remove the steering wheel, etc?
Well, if electric cars come along, there will be no need for petrol and diesel as fuel. What future then for classic cars that in the extreme may currently be worth millions of Pounds/Euros/Dollars/Rubles/Whatever? Scrap, logically.
Frightening!
So it will reduce pollution? When we’re all electric? Make your mind up!
Might work in autonomous vehicles, but as they admit, there will always be drivers who think their skill or need supersedes others. Even IF all vehicles had this at the same time, some drivers would ignore it.
So a vehicle traveliing faster than the rest would have preference to avoid an accident?
And when there’s an accident who would be deemed at fault the car or the driver that isn’t in control of the vehicle anymore
Officer, it wasnt my fault, my car was doing a software update
Do away with traffic lights?
To be totally reliant on technology produced by one company Ford
FORD
One of the world’s greediest corporations
In the Guinness book of records for producing the world’s worst ever car the Erica
Doubtless overcharging for the first unit
However I will say that the supply of replacement parts will be plentiful easy to find and relatively cheap, just as well you will need to do this again, again, again, again, again, again and again.
After you seek professional help to resolve any problems you will find that a complete replacement will be required at a cost many times that of the original unit, even then the quality and reliability cannot be guaranteed unless you drive a Ford and even that’s far from certain.
Alternatively we could just switch off traffic lights outside of the morning and evening rush hours then treat the junctions as would any normal junction. With this in mind each local area can determine the best times and sections to do this as all rush hours will vary throughout the country and will require some degree of latitude. The councils will also save on their electric bills and have a clearer conscience for leaving the office lights and heating on 24/7 all year round.
You don’t require new technology when old common sense prevails.
The single reason that common sense is never used.
ISSUES ARE DEBATED BY POLITICIANS and common sense does not accept backhanders
ford Erika? you mean the mk3 escort, according to google. what was supposedly wrong with it to make it the worlds worst car? i had numerous over the years, as did most of my family, never had a problem with ANY. it was also the UKs top/second best selling car for MANY years. they wouldnt sell that well if they were truly that bad!
.
Fairy tales from Ford, the company that has only just got an EV offering in the UK. And that has announced that it is to stop making cars altogether in the US. Maybe it’s going to move into telematics instead, and it’s testing the waters by floating this idea?
Without wishing to appear facetious, would Fords’ energies not be better spent ensuring that their cars don’t burst into flames?
or making sure their seat frames dont fail, and claim they have no knowledge of it
It sounds suspiciously like another short term ‘solution’ to traffic problems. Like motorways, bypasses, extra lanes etc it will only encourage a further increase in traffic, and promote the idea that we need to travel as fast as we can, instead of tackling the issue that we have to CUT DOWN on numbers of vehicles on the roads and stop expecting to speed everywhere.
Foot-in-mouth disease or what? Only vehicle and systems manufacturers would make such a proposal. Traffic lights are not located only at junctions: what about pedestrian crossings? Would similar technology be installed – or even affordable – on bicycles and mobility scooters? Or would every pedestrian have to be chipped at birth? (Readers might think I’m joking.)
When I was a schoolboy in Maidstone, Kent, I cycled to school and witnessed the daily queue of traffic in Bower Mount Road trying to turn right at its uncontrolled T-junction with London Road. In 1971 I attended a “Careers” presentation by Kent County Council’s Traffic Section and asked whether there were plans to signalise that junction to reduce those queues. The response was that KCC would not use traffic signals for that purpose. I moved away from Maidstone in September 1972. However, I noted on a return visit about ten years ago that the junction had been signalised…
Surely the driver is the one who needs educating.My advanced driving instructor insisted that I negotiated several congested junctions without stopping the car
I was amazed that with some forward planning and constant vigilance, how it was possible at most places, even allowing for the idiots who must always be first away, and who leave a few inches between themselves and the car in front.
Lets not forget that Henry Ford received a high award from the Nazis in 1938 as an ardent admirer.
Because Ford was building German tanks silly.
It seems waseful that car makers are inventing V2x protocols like this by themselves. Surely they should be agreeing on standards now, there seems little point in doing it all later. To use the DVD anology mentioned, this is like every manufacturer having a video recorder with a different sized tape.
These systems will only work when humans are not involved in driving any of the cars. For this to happen… will take some time, if at all.
“Ford’s own research also says that road junctions cause up to 60% of Road Traffic Collisions” What a load of bunkum. It’s the drivers that case the RTCs.
Lol Ford testing Milton Keynes have you been to Milton Keynes it’s all dual carriages and round abouts !!!!
Best to do the test in Birmingham I can assure you it will blow a fuse haha
Anything designed by humans will inherently be flawed – forget it!!!!
They should be switched off when NOT neccessary as it is in many European countries. It would cut down on pollution, fuel usage and ensure driver went through junctions with lights off more aware of other traffic. As it is now many try to “beat the lights” causing dangerous situations. Many roundabouts have them to control the traffic that is already being controlled by the roundabout itself.
Not entirely on the original subject but with regard to Ken’s point about pollution – why aren’t pedestrian controlled traffic lights “off” until a pedestrian pushes the button? Would save a fortune in electricity nationwide. On the original subject scrap all traffic lights and make all traffic light junctions a roundabout of mini-roundabout