this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2024
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What is this thing?

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Yeah I know these are used for counting vehicles but can they also be used for detecting vehicle speed?

Description: two pneumatic hoses, affixed to a road. They lead to a box that's locked to a telephone pole. Location is southern California. On a minor artery road.

Doubtful that it's to survey if a new stop sign is needed since the next street is minor, dead ends into this one and already has a stop sign. The next intersection with another minor artery already has a stop sign.

Extremely doubtful that a traffic light is being considered since there isn't anywhere near the amount of traffic to justify one.

This is located on a slope. Many cars speed down here. That's why I'm wondering about speed sensing by this device.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

We have these on bike lanes at intersections in the Netherlands.

In addition to everything already discussed here, they also have the role of asking for a green light automatically for you. If there are no cars travelling on Street ways contending with the bike lane, the light turns green. Alternatively, it turns green when you get your turn.

You can also ask for the green light by pushing a button, but it's nice that some intersections (the newer ones) don't require it.

However, I'm not sure if these can be configured to work for both cars and bikes at the same time.