1 Huge Reason New White Traffic Lights Won’t Work in CA
California is among the top states pushing for the inclusion and advancement of zero-emission vehicles. That push may have an additional side effect on drivers other than quieter cars and cleaner air.
With the addition of thousands of EV cars and the AI technology that comes with many of them, there may be a need for a change to how traffic lights work in California. But there’s a huge reason why the change probably won’t work.
Why Will Traffic Lights in California Need to Be Changed in the Future?
In the not-far-off future, California traffic lights could see the addition of a new color. Researchers have found that the current 3 color system, which has been used for more than 100 years, could be better with 1 more color to help AI cars.
The plan is to add a White Light to traffic signals that would tell the AI in self-driving cars to take over control of the traffic and work together to improve the flow of cars during high traffic times. That means the robot cars would take over and the human drivers would have to follow their directions.
That sounds a little scary - having AI take over control of the streets - but it’s already happening in a different way. Many traffic signals are already controlled by computer-run timers, cameras, and sensors to improve traffic flow. It’s the idea of the cars doing the planning that sounds odd.
Traffic Light Changes: Why A New Color Will Fail in California
It’s pretty cool and impressive that we are on track for something so futuristic to be on the horizon, but there’s 1 big problem with the plan: human drivers. Especially tourists. California gets a lot of visitors from other states and countries. All it takes is 1 human not understanding or refusing to follow what the AI cars are doing to cause a big issue on California roads.
When Will White Lights Be Added to California Traffic Signals
But that is an issue for the scientists and engineers to figure out. There isn’t a planned date for any of this to happen and the color of the new lights won’t necessarily be white. They just need to be a different color than red, green, or yellow so the AI cars can differentiate the signal. My vote is for purple.
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