A man who said he bought a device that allowed him to change stop lights from red to green received a $50 ticket for suspicion of interfering with a traffic signal.
Jason Niccum of Longmont, Colorado, said the device, which he bought on eBay for $100, helped him cut his time driving to work.
The device, called an Opticon, is similar to what firefighters use to change lights when they respond to emergencies. It emits an infrared pulse that receivers on the traffic lights pick up.
Niccum was cited after city traffic engineers who noticed repeated traffic light disruptions at certain intersections spotted a white Ford pickup passing by whenever the patterns were disrupted.
Rock on!
It would be useful to extend the yellow light which the government reduces when they add cameras at the traffic signals, because they want more revenue.
Here’s two other links:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/988790.asp?cp1=1
http://www.northernexpress.com/editorial/features.asp?id=509
I looked on eBay and could not find one 🙁
Aww, the fun of hacking the lights…
50$ seems like a really low fine for such an offense.
I think $500 MINIMUM is more appropriate due to endangering public safety.
I don’t see why you’d spend money on something like this- most of the time it works fine to just flash your brights at the right rate.
Just don’t do it while a cop is watching.
> most of the time it works fine just to flash your brights at the right rate.
Um…not true:
http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/strobe.asp
-Chris
“I think $500 MINIMUM is more appropriate due to endangering public safety.”
How does it do that. It turns you road green and the other red. It may piss people off, but it in no way endangers anyones safety…
This technology was big back in the 80s and 90s, but isn’t used alot anymore due to it cost.
What a looser! I can change the red’s to greens with the power of my mind.
It’s called Opticom (a 3M trademark), not Opticon. A similiar product is called MIRT. I built one many years ago using a strobe light and an IR filter. The only tricky part was figuring out the PRR, which was made much easier when a local television station showed off the system using the Opticom emitter with the cover off. All I had to do then was play the tape in slow motion and divide the flashes by the number of frames…
Sculpture, actually, Paul.
Karl Rove had one of these. he used it to change blue states to red.
Greg is correct, it is very dangerous because the light changes with a quick yellow interval. I was a signal tech for 10 yrs and it was one of the easier checks to cruise intersections with a portable opticom transmitter.
After having a spat in the digg.com comments page over this issue, I just want to bring up one thing:
The use of products to hack traffic signals is a dangerous, selfish, and myopic practice. Tampering with public services, especially life-saving equiptment, is a felony. If someone dies, you get manslaughter.
My father is a 26 year veteran of a suburban, Cleveland, Ohio fire department. On all the major thoroughfares, these systems are employed to deal with stop-and-go traffic during rush-hours and in certain emergencies. The ambulance, and men and women inside, are in great danger when they are travelling at speeds that don’t allow stopping to avoid drivers.
I’m not certain if there have been any fatalities following the use of above products but drivers are incapable enough of doing what everyone should know: yielding to blinking lights.
Thanks you.
i would think traffic lights are cool but you know they should make the traffic light cover orange so peoplle could see it more and it should be in toronto ontario.That would be cool.Also i love california’s traffic lights they are radical 🙂 sweet