I was on my way home during rush hour the other day, and an intersection that usually gets really backed up with traffic on all four sides had no traffic either on the main road or the side roads that cross it.. the power had gone out so the light was blinking yellow on the main road and blinking red on the side roads.. people on the side roads were easily making their way through the intersection as the main road was moving without delay. I had read about a similar incident where the traffic lights went out in a town in England and the result was far less traffic. https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/610569/traffic-lights-out-gridlock
It made me realize, there is a huge motive by the oil companies to have people starting and stopping at lights for no reason at all, although they will say it is for "safety", but in reality it could just be to increase oil consumption.. because it does increase oil consumption, that's why cars have both Highway and City MPG ratings.
Either way, the current traffic light system is horribly primitive.. it is amazing that the government gangs will put up red light traffic cams and also camera facial recognition, but they don't use any of that to increase through put at intersections.. their goal is traffic, and their goal is to steal money.. otherwise instead of a red light traffic cam to "ticket" you, they would just have the camera see that you are still going through the intersection and only turn the light red when it made sense to.
The lights could at least estimate the mass and momentum of the cars on all sides of the intersection and change them more intelligently... say you have 20 cars at around 2 tons each all moving at 50 mph.. and then you have 1 car coming from the side road wanting to make a left turn and drives over the switch, so the dumb light will stop all that mass.. the sheer waste of energy at every intersection is mind boggling.. but hey, they have cameras up at the intersection to spy on who you are... that's what happens when you fund things with theft (taxes).
But it gets worse, because 90% of drivers don't realize that there is a loop of wire in the road that measures the inductance change when a big car pulls over the loop, to detect the car.. .I can't tell you how many times I have been at traffic lights where the guy in front doesn't pull all the way into the loop to trigger the light and we end up waiting 2 or 3 cycles for the light to turn green because of it
and yet the loop is clearly visible at most intersections where they cut into the road, put a wire in and tarred over it.
Let's hope for more "malfunctioning" traffic lights, as the blinking yellow and red seems to work so much better in terms of safety and fuel efficiency and travel time.