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Comment by JshWright | Hacker News Reader

I don't believe there is any particular standard for this at the moment, and it likely on a list of special cases where the human "observer" takes over.

In general though, I don't think this is something that automated vehicles will have trouble with. Picking out strobing lights is pretty trivial for computer vision, and a couple of external microphones located on opposite sides of the vehicle would have an easy time localizing the direction of sirens even before the EV is in line-of-sight. I suspect eventually there will be some sort of preemption signal that EVs will be able to transmit that communicates their intended route to vehicles in their path.

I look forward to the day that I have a big ol' "get out of my way" button on the dashboard of my ambulance...

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I look forward to the day that I have a big ol' "get out of my way" button on the dashboard of my ambulance...

I think I saw a light change on demand in my hometown (Wake County, NC) for an ambulance the other day. It was late at night with minimal traffic and the light had just turned red ahead of me. The ambulance was between me and the light and the light immediately cycled back to green as the ambulance approached. I'd never seen or heard of this before, but do you know whether emergency vehicles are now able to influence traffic signals?

edit: apparently so - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_signal_preemption

Yep. A few people got busted for buying/selling the devices on Ebay a couple years ago. Not so legal to mess with traffic signals to speed up your commute -- damn tempting though.

One such article: https://boingboing.net/2006/04/18/man-fined-50-for-usi.html

Only a $50 fine! Makes it even more tempting. :P

This is actually new to me. I thought that all of those systems just turn all the lights red. This automatically solves the problem of people playing with the system, or selling the dongles - only emergence vehicles can go through red, so it's pointless to use them.

Turning them red isn't terribly useful. As you point out, we can already drive through a red light after checking that approaching traffic has stopped.

By turning the light green, it allows cars that might otherwise be obstructing the intersection to proceed through it, clearing a path.

We've had these in my small town for years. They can also influence stop light turn signals which is interesting.

In Cambridge, MA one of the local bus' has the power to keep a light green longer than normal with the same/similar system: http://pb.cambridgema.gov/1bus .

Yes, it's generally called an "Opticom" system, as that is one of the more popular ones. The technology has been in use for decades.

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