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Damjan Stankovic's traffic light countdown display

By Rain Noe - December 17, 2009

in Object Culture

When sitting a red light in New York, you know the light's soon to change when the "Don't Walk" symbols facing traffic perpendicular to you start flashing; with enough experience you can even time it so your car launches into motion at the exact instant the green light illuminates. We're not endorsing this as a safe practice, merely observing that this is common.

Serbian designer Damjan Stankovic has a similar concept in his Eko light, which incorporates a circular, visual countdown timer wrapped around the red light. Stankovic's idea, though, is that rather than enable quicker green-light launches, the countdown light would serve to de-stress drivers by providing them feedback of exactly how much longer they'll have to wait.

Mr Stankovic claimed the device would reduce stress felt by drivers and could even help the environment. He said: 'Since you know exactly how long you have to wait you can sit back and clear your head for a while. No need to keep your foot on the gas. Relax.'

He added: 'When you think about it, you don't need this information counted in seconds, you just need to see the speed of the progress bar to give you an estimate of the time.'

Mr Stankovic said drivers could also turn off their engines while waiting for the green light and that the design may also make driving safer. 'With the Eko light both drivers and pedestrians can be fully aware of how much time they have left before the light changes and that way reduce the chance for potential traffic accident,' he said. For that reason he decided only to include a counter for the red light as the green light might encourage people to start off too quickly.

via daily mail

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Obmulap

14 years ago

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If we ever get this in NYC I'm leaving. Literally the worst idea for a city like this. Maybe we should just get rid of the red light all together and stick with a big green light and a smaller yellow light. No one really wants to stop anymore anyway. This kind of thing is great where it has already been seen in pedestrian crosswalks since they are taking their lives in their own hands when they are crossing the street around here.
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Ushanka

14 years ago

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This is the earliest time-announcing traffic light, as far as I can tell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshalite

It faced the same problem--specifically, people would see that the light was almost green, or had just turned red, and would drive through. I'm certain it's more dangerous than the current who-knows-how-long-I'll-wait system.
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Don

14 years ago

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like the concept, but it's not a new thing. Many towns have red light with numbers countdown
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Matt

14 years ago

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Yeah, these have been around for a while...

Also, wouldn't turning on and off your car at every light use more petrol and do more damage to your engine than just letting it idle at 1000-500rpm for half a minute?

I also agree with Mike, in that people would start driving off earlier...
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Mike

14 years ago

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Yeah i've heard of that before. Most people just watch the walk signs, or the traffic light of the oncoming traffic. I don't think anyone is going to want to shut off their car at every light. It may also be a bit more dangerous considering some people may dash into the intersection earlier than usual.

After reading Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt, you start to realize that a lot of things that are designed to make people more safe actually endanger them.
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Mark

14 years ago

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From a transportation/public policy perspective this is a really bad idea. This design would encourage motorist to treat public streets like their private drag strips. It's easy to envision people jumping the light and gunning the engine right before the light switches.

Which is fine. Unless your a pedestrian or cyclist.
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Ken J

14 years ago

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I like the concept. As for applying this to the other lights, the driver would be already moving at a pace that is too fast to concentrate and read the circular countdown. That reinforces the idea that it should only be applied to the red.
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Esmond

14 years ago

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Definitely not new...have been seeing these for years in where I live, which is Malaysia. That guy ought to do adequate survey before designing something.
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Mdl

14 years ago

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Sorry, not a new thing. My hometown in Portugal, has for quite some years a system identical to that, but instead of a circular countdown, it has a countdown by numbers.

Ya'know.... 10, 9, 8, 7, 6... you get the point. It's way more practical than this one.
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