I had to run into traffic today — a neighbor with two little kids, out in a painted crosswalk, was being ignored by fast-moving cars in both directions.
Yeah, it’s Friday commute, it’s a hill so people are pushing it both up and down, there was glare.
But, still, they were all plenty visible. And the law here does say, stop for pedestrians crossing — anywhere.
Big ticket for violation — if it gets noticed by a police officer. But there wasn’t one.
I got in the street, waved my amber strobe (my usual street-crossing light) and hollered — and managed to just slow down one of the cars with that.
At least they noticed the pedestrians — after several yells.
I think people react better to amber than to red, around here, they just blow by cyclists with red strobe taillights.
And they were doing the same thing to this young woman and two little kids, traffic in both lanes and them in the middle of the street.
Dagnabbit.
I want a wizard’s staff or light saber or something with multiple bright lights that’s still reasonable to carry.
Recharge it every night, burn through the batteries fast.
Any thoughts welcome. I’ll come up with something but more ideas better.
I’m thinking, the constant frequency of a regular strobe may be numbing people so much that they just ‘see through’ your amber strobe and never reacted to it.
I wonder whether the alternating frequencies of the ‘police strobe’ of the Astrolux S2, for example, may get people to notice, even if it’s white.
Yeah, the “stutter strobe” from TK’s drivers is attention-grabbing.
Problem for the pedestrian I’m thinking about is, she has both hands busy, a little kid on each side, crossing the street.
You don’t let go of a 3 or 5 year old in a crosswalk to try to grab a flashlight.
So I’m trying to imagine something for that kind of person’s visibility.
Walking staff that the kid’s holding on to, maybe, for a kid old enough to really not let go …
The cheap intl-outdoor rgbw driver (also on MtnE) has a police strobe setting, I bet that it will be effective to shine a flashlight with a colour XM-L to oncoming traffic with that, but it will probably not be allowed. Over here only police/ambulance/fire brigade are allowed to use blue lights on public roads.
Yeah, I think we’ve thought of most of the usual ideas and can suggest them to be tried.
I’m hoping for a very bright attention-getting surprising idea that might be awesome.
Visualize a young mother with a toddler on each hand walking across traffic.
No hands free. That was the situation that got my attention.
Yeah, a crossing guard with stop sign and bright light would be ideal.
Nobody makes that kind of robot attendant yet.
(this isn’t an easy problem)
Hmmm … li-ion, automatic on when held upright, off when laid down …
• 12” STOP/STOP: $170 +shipping
• 18” STOP/STOP: $265 +shipping
Buildable, maybe. Hmmmm. Put one kid on a leash to have a hand free, but if the kid falls and gets dragged when Mom has to run out of the way ….
better than being hit.
ASIDE — For nighttime use, turning the car’s headlights back at them, I’ve been giving these away for a while, they’re rather amazingly effective at night (built to a European standard for reflectivity that is way brighter than the commonly available stuff in the US): http://www.pedestrianreflectors.com/
(I even hung one in the back window of my car — and it seems effective making people aware they’re following close with high beams on — because it throws the bright light directly back at the source)
Aha! I knew somebody had to have tried something like this.
Yeah, it’s a design ten years outdated, puny little LEDs, but it’s the idea.
Put your hand through this grip, with the battery tube inside, and bright LEDs grouped over the outside, and you still have your fingers available to hold on to. a little kid’s hand crossing the street.
Hmmmm ……
[Makes fist that lights up, waves fist at oncoming traffic …]
turns up several more variations.
Here’s one — hmmmmm, pricey, but it looks serious. Not all that bright per the spec, maybe the spec is (gasp) honest?
> waiting on traffic to clear
That’s the problem, since it’s a hill with some curves at the corner where I had to jump in.
Cars come into view moving fast. There’s not time to get clear out of the crosswalk — and people can get halfway then have vehicles coming in both directions.
(This is why I carry a strobe —and always turn it on before stepping into a street — because from experience, a car can come up faster than I can fiddle with a flashlight to get it turned on and pointed.)
Too many people run down in crosswalks around here. It’ll get worse as rush hour overlaps sunset, after Hallowe’en particularly.
Yeah, there’s slow improvement in marking lines, and adding reflectors and lights and signs and such.
Still — how about a light saber, or wizard’s staff — something kid size but stunningly bright?
I’m thinking there might be a way to make — with high-drain batteries and the right driver and (what emitters?) something that would give only say five or ten minutes total brightness — a couple of minutes in each crosswalk — then recharge overnight.
Think of the guts of one of the big multi-emitter lights, but with the emitters wrapped around a pole instead of buried inside a flashlight head?
Maybe RMM’s 46mm - SRK 32x 7135 Driver - V2
four 18650s in parallel (common bike light boxes would work)
Have you tried talking to the city? I seem to recall reading that you’re in Berkeley and my recollection from when I attended UC was that the city was responsive to traffic issues. Are you up in the hills on one of my main drags?
Anyone have thoughts about using something like the guts of one of the big multi-emitter lights, but with the emitters wrapped around a pole instead of buried inside a flashlight head?
Looking at RMM’s 46mm – SRK 32× 7135 Driver – V2
four 18650s in parallel (common bike light boxes would work)
would light up a walking stick pretty well, maybe, with multiple LEDs
I thought about (and still may) taking a dead-but-still-sturdy sapling, digging the root ball out of the ground, then making a Gandalf staff out of it. Cut to the right length, it would probably need reinforcement and a cover at the cut end, which would be the bottom of the staff of course.
I’d bore the root-ball end for the battery & driver, use one of those extra springs from a P60 and a weight (maybe even the battery itself?) to bump the clicky when the staff is hit on the ground.
Maybe one of those DD+Strobe FET drivers, for effect and steady illumination when you’re safe on the sidewalk.
I haven’t yet come up with a way to make a white flame-shaped diffuser, set in to the root ball, which would need some artistic re-arrangements, most likely. This is one place a Cool White LED would look … well, “cool”.
That might at least get people to slow down and ogle…
At my sons elementary school, the crossing guards use (no kidding) toy lightsabers just like this one. They’re collapsible, cheap, come in variety of colors and highly visible in the early morning since they are led lighted. We always comment on how funny it is to see an adult holding a lightsaber in one hand and a stop sign in the other. :laughing:
I am a Traffic Technologist (not a PE) at a large city hall in the West Coast of Canada in the Traffic Section for the last 27 years. These are the same complaints I hear daily.
Believe it or not, a marked crossing is 7 times less safer to cross than an unmarked crosswalk because it gives a false sense of security with a marked crosswalk, Pedestrians (peds for short) don’t even look before crossing at a marked crosswalk. While a unmarked crosswalk, most peds look before crossing. Now with smart phones and Pokemon Go…it is getting worse.
In my years of experiences dealing with safe pedestrian crossings. In the last couple of years, a new product that entered the market for municipalities. This product is the Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon or RRFB for short.
We have installed 14 of these units last year and 99% of the motorists stop for peds. This was amazing since the are 1/4 of the price of an overhead Active Flashing Crosswalk (AFC) or what is also called a Special Crosswalk in Canada.
I would suggest you talk to your Traffic Engineering Department in your City to have one of these installed as a Pilot Project so they can evaluate this product and maybe have more installed.
There are several manufactures of this product and some are good and some are bad.
Something like this — almost flush with the pavement, flashes across the width of the street, along with upright signs — has been installed on quite a few high traffic crosswalks in Berkeley. I don’t know which manufacturer (blunt opinions/reviews would be most welcome, either yours or a pointer to them elsewhere).
I don’t see it happening on residential streets anytime soon though.
