Posted on 12/15/2009 3:33:04 PM PST by NormsRevenge
MILWAUKEE – Cities around the country that have installed energy-efficient traffic lights are discovering a hazardous downside: The bulbs don't burn hot enough to melt snow and can become crusted over in a storm — a problem blamed for dozens of accidents and at least one death.
"I've never had to put up with this in the past," said Duane Kassens, a driver from West Bend who got into a fender-bender recently because he couldn't see the lights. "The police officer told me the new lights weren't melting the snow. How is that safe?"
Many communities have switched to LED bulbs in their traffic lights because they use 90 percent less energy than the old incandescent variety, last far longer and save money. Their great advantage is also their drawback: They do not waste energy by producing heat.
Authorities in several states are testing possible solutions, including installing weather shields, adding heating elements like those used in airport runway lights, or coating the lights with water-repellent substances.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Best Liberal intentions.... killing as usual.
“Cities around the country that have installed energy-efficient traffic lights are discovering a hazardous downside: The bulbs don’t burn hot enough to melt snow and can become crusted over in a storm — a problem blamed for dozens of accidents and at least one death.”
Yeah, lets put the world economy in the hands of THESE a$$ssholes...
I guess they won’t do much to stop glacial ice sheets either when they cover part of the earth the next few years. Oh well, it seemed like a good idea.-)
Liberals excel in unintended consequences.
Why is it that Liberal solutions never, ever seem to work right?
I’ve got a solution...put the old bulbs back in!
Global warming needs to be hurried up
Now they want to add “heating elements”? That’ll save a lot of power!
How about just admitting they made a mistake? It does happen. I might have thought that LED traffic lights were a good idea. Longer lasting, more efficient. But if they don’t work, they don’t work.
Well, here in NW ND, we get roughly 16 hours of daylight in summer (which makes it really hard to get the kids to bed!), and don't use artificial lighting much. In the winter, the situation is reversed (very short days), and any extra heat is a bonus as the mercury drops below zero.
Just one more reason the one-size-fits-all bromides from those who live in warmer climates have no business being national mandates.
Oops.
Saving MAN-MADE energy...
What a STOOPID concept in the first place!
ACORN will get grants to stand there with scrapers to remove the snow.
(**The cubic tons CO2 number is based on the FORTRAN I picked up from CRU computer models, so it's good as gold, and not like I made it up or anything.)
on something like this, there needs to be accountability -
start suing the cities that allow these - a couple of good suits and they'll be done
The Law of Unintended Consequences - ain’t it a bitch.
Those LED traffic lights never melt the snow here in Austin, Texas.
An electric car is going to work really good when it is -15 too.
This story misses a very important point. One reason for switching to these LED bulbs is that they ARE safer. Older traffic lights typically have a single bulb for each signal indicator (three bulbs for a traditional red-yellow-green signal head). One advantage of the new lights is that the single bulb in each head is replaced by many smaller luminous LED heads. So instead of having one bulb burn out -- thereby rendering the entire signal indicator dark -- the LED bulbs burn out over a period of time. This allows the signal to continue giving the correct color indicator even if half the LED bulbs are burned out.
Ah, the Law of Unintended Consequences!!!
Has there ever been a liberal idea that didn’t end badly because of unintended consequences?
Politicians will fix this problem as soon as they finish mucking up our health care.
I agree. This would've sounded like a great idea to me also... What could possibly be the downside?
But once you are confronted with the 'oops' factor - admit the mistake and fix it. Adding heating coils, when the old incandescent lights used to work -- seems stupidly stubborn...
LEDs last longer but not necessarily their electronics. I’ve seen many haywire LED stop lights. The heating elements will also heat the electronics causing more failures.
How about just admitting they made a mistake? It does happen. I might have thought that LED traffic lights were a good idea. Longer lasting, more efficient. But if they don’t work, they don’t work.
The LED traffic lights are an excellent idea. I would not back away from any plan to replace them all. The very good advantage they have is that they consist of many LEDs and thus, they don't burn out all at once. If a few burn out, the light stays on for the most part. That's a great advantage, all by itself. I've seen the other lights where the entire light goes out when the bulb goes. It's just blank and there's no light there at all... and that's bad.
And then, for the "melting" part, there's a very simple solution which I thought of without any help from the article or any other source... LOL...
Very simply, you put a low-powered heating element on there in such a way as to keep it very slightly warmer than freezing. You have this powered only by a control which controls all of them in the city and it only goes on when there is "both" a freeze and precipitation at the same time. Otherwise, it never goes on, at all.
With the very few days and circumstances where you're going to have a freeze and precipitation at the same time, its use will be almost non-existent. And whatever amount it is used will be definitely cheaper than running more expensive energy-using bulbs all the time, day and night, for 365 days a year... :-)
Oh come on. We’ve had LED stoplights in Michigan for at least a decade, and we get just as much snow as Milwaukee.
This is much ado about very little. Fer crying out loud, snow covers the lane markings, the traffic signs, and at times we have white-outs from windblown snow.
This is a sorry excuse for blowing through a light.
LED traffic lights save a ton of money because otherwise crews have to change the bulbs annually, BEFORE THEY BURN OUT. If they do burn out, then guess what? YOU CAN’T SEE THE TRAFFIC LIGHT.
How safe is that?
/rant.
Heretic.
Dr. Mann's findings clearly state the footprint at 42 squintillion cylindrical metric tons of CO2. Get thee to a reeducation camp, post haste. /s
Same thing happens on my Silverado dually, I have added all kinds of LED lamps to it including side markers, roof, tail and fancy progressive turn signals, and I live in Alaska.
Old lamps would melt the ice, not anymore, now I have to chip them clean.
Well at least this should create jobs, changing them back!
Nice thing about heating elements is they don't use any power... /s
Now, that's what I call cloudy weather!
I don’t admire eco-fascists, but I do no like the idea linking LED traffic lights with liberals. It is not just a status of high technology standards against other countries as a self-esteem of patriotism, but a key to rely less on oil which may always risk Middle East unstability and cost rise of oil. It also saves more tax payers’ money and contributes to a smaller government. Improvements may be needed for the cold freezing regions, but on the long run, LEDs last more than bulbs, which would contribute to less maintenance.
As another advantage, LED traffic lights could also beam megabytes of data per second with nano-second of flashing that may provide data of traffic to vehicle navigation system, which would upgrade traffic systems towards a new dimension. The icing and snow is a problem, but that should not mean LED traffics are such a failure.
We do have a few cloudy days, too...
I wouldn't stake my life on one.
...add heating elements...
Or send crews out to clean them individually with compressed air!! As we know, government union labor is so cheap that this approach won’t cost anything. And I’m sure they can get to all the lights right after the snowstorms end.
“Liberal unintended consequences” is exactly right. It’s easy to earn the sobriquet “libtard,” but in this case they’ve gone out of their way to merit it!
≤}B^)
Yes, think of all the shovel-ready jobs you could provide. Maybe even start a new union: the Federal Traffic Light Cleaners Union.
And you could give a contract to Government Motors to make tens of thousands of cherry pickers for these workers to get up there with due rapidity.
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