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The other two articles are stubs, and both are brand name products for this device. Neither is substantially different as to warrant its own page IMHO. In addition people visiting either page likely will have to visit the signal preemption page to understand what the device does. -- MMX 04:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
It's been a while. Making a second call for comments on merging these three articles. -- MMX 04:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
The article states that flashing your brights to trigger a traffic light to turn green is an urban legend due to the requisite frequency, etc. I've personally flashed my brights on many occasions and successfully changed the light. I've only done it in the dark, and I've only tried in upstate NY and Wisconsin.
I've done this several dozen times and seen success each time. I could understand if I had only tried it once and it worked right when the light was about to change anyhow, but I'm talking about dozens of times. The odds of it just being coincidental that many times seems extremely unlikely.
I understand the argument for why it's not possible and the argument sounds great on paper. The problem is that I've done it in real life many many times with success every time. Perhaps this should not be listed as an urban legend.
First, I realize that correlation does not imply causation. So yes, I know that it could be coincidental. To answer the first question, at a light that flashing my brights has worked (not all lights seem to work) I have NEVER had a failure. In other words, if I've ever succeeded at traffic light N then I have had a 100% success rate there.
Second, it cannot be due to approaching because I've had many occurrences of arriving, sitting at the light for a while, and then flashing my brights to make it change. I've done this at the same lights that I know from experience that flashing works so that it would be an experiment of sorts.
So, I know that it's not a completely controlled experiment and that there is certainly a moderate margin of experimental error, but nonetheless I've seen it work so many times (for both myself and others) that I find it very difficult to believe it to be coincidental. I understand the physics of the counter-argument. I know that a typical car headlight cannot flash a a frequency anywhere near that of an emergency vehicle, nor does it have anywhere near the same strength (or angle, for that matter). But, nonetheless, I've seen it work.
Come on out to Verona, Wisconsin (a place I know it works) and try for yourself. You'll be surprised.
I'm just a random passer-by, but I wanted to add that most dynamic traffic signals that I've seen are triggered by a loop of wire embedded in the tarmac that detects electrical activity (and not weight). If you're not directly on top of the loop (which you can clearly see), or if the sensor is defective, it won't trigger it, but flashing your headlights can increase the electrical activity variance enough that it trips the sensor. I'm not suggesting that my so-called "original research" should be included in the article, but put this here as it may answer the OP's situation. 70.75.132.111 ( talk) 14:56, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
I've toned down the following obvious commercial pitch: 'However the Eliminator“TM” by Collision Control Communications, Inc. does not have these limitations, and also gives advance warnings of collisions with similarly equipped emergency vehicles; find out more here:Eliminator for Collision Avoidance and Traffic Signal Preemption.' However, the article still seems to contain bias toward the Eliminator product. Wikipedia articles are supposed to be impartial, and the article should be further rewritten so that it doesn't come across quite so circumspect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.114.236.17 ( talk) 21:06, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Anonymous user at 71.127.121.231, do not restore the heavily biased section regarding the 'Eliminator' product again without first reading and understanding Wikipedia's policy on Neutrality. Discussion of what the Eliminator does, how it differs from other products, etc, is not strictly prohibited, but must be presented without the commercially-slanted description that was just removed (again). Wikipedia is not an advertising or promotional platform. Continued ignorance/defiance of Wikipedia policy can and will lead to you being blocked from editing. Thanks. Fjbfour ( talk) 18:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Please limit the ability of edits that can be made by this user, 71.127.121.231. He has removed links which were deemed informative and non-promotional, to replace with a link simply bringing whoever clicks it collisioncontrol.net, the home page of 'The Eliminator' product. There is nothing on that page that could be used to answer the question 'What Is Traffic Signal Preemption', which the link had been disguised as.
There is no requirement for a "central application to activate the desired traffic lights". The EMTRAC system (which I'm affiliated with) works autonomously via hardware in the vehicles which communicate via radio to hardware in the traffic cabinets. A central application is not required, but can be used for real time monitoring and logging.
Urban GPS environments are difficult, but it is unneeded to paint the situation so negatively. The concept of GPS being plagued with single point of failure problems seems excessive. In my experience atmospheric conditions and heavy cloud cover are very rarely an issue. Today's GPS modules are quire good.
Urban areas do have GPS difficulties from reflection. It might be interesting to mention the urban canyon effect in relation to this. All these poor GPS quality situations can be augmented with dead reckoning techniques; the combining of GPS data with sensors and mathematically intensive calculations to retain reasonable position accuracy. Some sensors might include wheel ticks, gyroscopes, and accelerometers. This type of augmented GPS system is commercially available and preforms well.
The gloom-n-doom representation of the future of GPS health is not recent nor realistic. The citation #5, 'GPS satellite system 'close to breakdown' and could fail by 2010', was published on 9th May 2009. the current GPS timeline shows that there has been 2 GPS satellites deployed since that pessimistic article was publish. I think governments and private companies have ongoing incentive to maintain a well working network of GPS satellites for quite some time, making such statements seem biased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.241.96 ( talk) 18:01, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
the preempt link in this article links to a bridge article (the card game bridge). pretty sure that should be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.19.102.88 ( talk) 22:14, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
I was just going to make the same comment. Hgesser ( talk) 19:53, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
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Content of this page is not worthy for its own page as it looks completely like OR. Merge content instead to a broader topic. ««« SOME GADGET GEEK »»» ( talk) 14:43, 18 April 2017 (UTC)