How does a traffic light detect that a car has pulled up and is waiting for the light to change?
As wonderful as it is that sensors are used for things we want and love, but in today’s time they’re also used for things we hate like traffic violations. Now when ever you pull up to a light you’ll think twice about trying to beat the light, or you cant use the excuse the the light was yellow, because now states are enforcing the use of sensors in the cameras at traffic lights. Pretty much the sensors are used to detect when a vehicle reaches the light. and or runs the light, or just doesn’t stop at all. sensors are also used to detect heavy traffic to speed up the time change between lights (awesome). Laser technology is one of the ways the sensors interact with the physical world. In physical computing class we learned about input and out putting of information into the physical world. An inductive loop is a coil of wire set in the road. A traffic light sensor uses the loop that it constantly tests the inductance of the loop in the road, and when the inductance rises, it knows there is a car waiting.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/safety-regulatory-devices
I like the sensor and also hate it. With this sensor we can tell on our phones which highway has traffic but it also gives us tickets which we doesn’t deserve. An example would be when you are in traffic and your car is stuckon the white line. Even though you didn’t run the red your car still gets a picture snapped and have to pay the $50 fine.
my opinion is that if your car broke down, and because of that you got a ticket, you can probably fight it and use a receipt from a mechanic as proof.
i also read somewhere recently that the MTA has implemented gate free e-zpass tolls on the henry hudson. this system probably somewhat works similar to the traffic light sensors.
This was very interesting!
Time to tell some friends to slow down next time they’re near a traffic light changing!