If you look at the title of my post it says, "Re: Vehicle Bugout -Traffic Lights - MIRT? [Re: martinfocazio]".

That Re part in brackets at the end tells you who my post was referring to, and the "do whatever it takes" quote does as well (though it should have been "do what it takes to protect my family"). I apologize for not using the forum's Quote Function.

The part in my post regarding burning down a forest to save my own butt and not caring about what happens to anything else is referring to a post in the last few weeks about a hiker who accidentally started a forest fire. In the news item/thread the aforementioned hiker lit a signal fire after becoming lost. In that thread, people were a little cheesed that this hiker dared start a signal fire in the dry season to get rescued after only a few hours. My thoughts in this post regarding that one were a continuation of the idea of "Me and Mine Before You and Yours".

And that idea, "Me and Mine Before You and Yours" is what this MIRT is all about. There's no way to sugarcoat it.

In a forum where there are heros who save people's lives at the possible expense of their own I find the idea of "Me and Mine Before You and Yours" to be offensive. In a forum where Firemen, Law Enforcement Officers, Paramedics, SAR members and so on post their knowledge and offer helpful advice I find the idea of "Me and Mine Before You and Yours" to be the antithesis of what they stand for and for what this site stands for. I find the MIRT concept offensive.

I apologize for any confusion.

I have posted regarding the fact that I understand the topic does not violate the forum rules, and apologize for suggesting it should be deleted.

I'm not mad at anyone. No worries.

Without getting into the moral dilemma of the situation, the first thing that came to my mind was, would it even work? It just doesn't seem feasible that a flashlight drop in would be powerful enough to trigger the stoplight sensors, and that's after assuming you would even be able to get the modulation right.

My second thought is, what's the use? If the situation was that bad where you feel justified in using it, why bother messing around with electronic gizmos? Just run the red light. If you're not worried about the legality of possesing one of these items, why would you be worried about the legality of traffic laws?

But in reality, if there there was every a time where you'd need one of these, people won't even care about the traffic lights. So it wouldn't matter if you had the power to change the lights to green or red yellow or whatever, the instersection is going to be blocked. The right of way means nothing if there's a car in front of you with no place to go. In an emergency situation even the fire department and police have trouble getting through, so I doubt this toy would really have any effect.

It used to work. The very first traffic light controllers for fire trucks did work on IR. But once people started using them they changed the systems so they don't work anymore. Spending any $ on one now would be a waste of $.

They have replaced the IR units with sound activated units. The new ones are triggered by a wail siren found in emergency vehicles.

If those gadgets still worked, you know people would be using them.

But... suppose one driver pressed the button to change the light and hit the gas pedal (in moving traffic), going north through an intersection, certain that the light would change... Then suppose another person hit the button to change the light and then hit the gas pedal, headed west through the same intersection?

It seems to me that NOBODY would be getting out of town fast. Dead, maybe, but not fast.

I think that's one of the problems with bugging out. Then there would also be people driving poorly maintained vehicles that suddenly died, people trying to turn or change lanes in front of someone who had no intention of giving way, pedestrians trying to take a short-cut...

Hide at home and avoid many of the problems.

Sue

Your assuming that home is safe to hide in. Before I moved a couple weeks ago I wouldn't think of hiding at home, it was hard enough to keep the welfare support neighbors that moved in from taking my stuff during normal times.

That would be the time to have a big dog...

Do you think that would be much defense? It wouldn't take much to defeat a dog, one quick shot and he's down. When the drug addicts have no problem pulling a gun on each other over their drugs they probably wouldn't have much problem doing the same to me or a dog.

Keep the dog inside. Loud, and 'specially large sounding, dogs have been well known to be a burglar deterrent for a long time. If the badguys come in anyway, armed, well, we know what should happen next...

Yep, dog is there for its sensors, not its teeth. Just wake me up and stay out of my line of fire.