Here’s Why Maine, New Hampshire, & Massachusetts Traffic Lights Could Soon Have a 4th Light

If you have been fortunate enough to spend time traveling to other parts of the world, you have probably noticed how vastly different common things can be in other countries.

This is true even when you are talking about other English-speaking countries.  Food can be called by different names (chips versus crisps in Britain, for example), you could end up with a jail sentence for behavior that we would just consider to be rude, and items that we consider common in the United States could be completely banned in other countries.

No matter where you go in the world there are always three lights: go, caution, and stop.  Additionally, they are always green, yellow, and red.  The only deviation from this rule is that, in Japan, the green lights are more bluish-green.

That worldwide rule could soon change, though.

Why Are We Getting a 4th Traffic Light?

In the near future, we could soon be getting a new light on our traffic lights.

In addition to red, green, and yellow, there could also be a white light.

What would the purpose of the new light be?

According to the Bright Side Youtube channel, the white light would be used to send traffic data to self-driving cars.  This would allow the autonomous vehicles to connect with a traffic control computer.  That computer would tell the self-driving vehicles the best speed to travel through the intersection and would give priority to the street with the highest volume of traffic.

For people who were still driving their cars (old-school style) the visible light would be an indication to follow the other vehicles through the intersection.

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Sounds pretty cool, eh?  Of course, we'll need a lot more self-driving vehicles on the road before it will make sense to install the system everywhere.  So, the full implementation could still be a few decades away.