Countdown to Red

For many motorists, the amber traffic signal is more a challenge than a warning: instead of slowing down, they speed up, trying to beat the light before it changes. It is a hazardous practice, since there is no way of knowing precisely when the light will turn red.

The answer may prove to be a new "countdown" traffic light that has been tested over an eight-month period in Abilene, Texas, and cut traffic accidents at a busy intersection by 44% . It looks like an ordinary traffic-light signal head. But twelve seconds before it is due to change, the amber light blinks a count down from nine to one at one-second intervals in 10-in.-high numerals that are visible for 200 ft. It then glows steadily amber for three more seconds before the signal turns red.

"We were skeptical when we first tried it," says Abilene City Traffic Engineer Russell Taylor. "I thought it might make the motorist speed up to get through the intersection, but it has worked exactly the opposite. The light takes the pressure off the driver during that critical moment of approach." As a result of the test, Abilene will spend $5,900 for three more signals from its home-town inventor, James L. R. Hines, a longtime safety engineer for the Shell Oil Co. Houston plans to in stall 73 of them. And Hines, who spent nine years developing the system to "give a fellow a little better chance," has had inquiries from 19 foreign countries.

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