If Boston Got a 4th Traffic Light Color, Would It Be More Efficient, or the Stuff of Nightmares?

With the advent of self-driving cars, or completely autonomous vehicles (AVs), there is talk of adding a new traffic light to the red, yellow, and green trio so they will stop and go when needed and communicate with other AVs.

Self-driving cars, according to popsci.com, may never hit the road without human interaction.  There is a team of engineers who say that AVs may help improve road conditions (is the Boston city driver as scared as I am right now?).

In New York City, This Might Work

If these AVs do hit the road, I'm assuming they run like computers.  Computers will only do what you tell them to do, and they follow a set of strict rules.

I can, kind of, maybe, see this system working in New York City, where the roads are very easy to figure out.  If you can count and if you know your alphabet, you can figure out how to get anywhere in NYC, even without GPS.

But with a city like Boston? FORGET IT.

Haven't we been told that Boston streets used to be horse trails and horses go wherever they want?  You don't even have to go that far back to know that driving around Boston is a nightmare.

Put an AV in the mix, and I'm probably never going to the Theater District again.

North Carolina State University

There is a team at North Carolina State University, according to popsci.com, who are talking about adding a white light to our red, yellow, and green traffic light so that AVs can communicate with other AVs and traffic walk signals.

They say this will make things more efficient for all drivers.

I wonder if when they say, "more efficient", they really mean "stuff of nightmares?"

Would you be okay with AVs on the road?