[newtonsfirstlaw]

Everyone has been in the situation where they are about 500m from a green (or red) traffic light and you need to guess what state the traffic light will be in by the time you reach the light. This gives you a chance to either brake early, accelerate or maintain speed so as to waste the least amount of kinetic energy your car has.

If traffic light timers were installed at lights, and on blind corners or hills, unnecessary stops could be virtually eliminated. Particularly on the latter, an easy calculation could be made to show you the minimum and maximum speed you'd need to maintain to reach the light in time.

There would be quirks involved - often pressure sensors are used to stop for side roads, and ambulances can send a radio signal to get a green light. There are also pedestrian crossing buttons to consider. Obviously the ambulances should have priority, meaning that there has to be a margin of safety associated with these speeds - they should be within the speed limit, and have the light turn green maybe 70m or so before traffic is scheduled to show up, so that they can brake in time for the light changed as a result of the ambulance.

The pressure sensors and traffic crossing buttons would have to result in a scheduled light change being delayed so that the traffic heading towards the lights would not be fooled. Usually in these instances it is one vehicle stopping traffic for 10 or 20 vehicles, resulting in huge wastes of energy.

Tested in a small city, I suspect that this would remove the need to rush for most people - only the really stupid people would race to the red lights, and everyone else would cruise or coast.

Thoughts?