> because of all the red tape that must be
to
because of all the rigoy testing and precise engineering that has to be
Nobody is saying you can't pour theoretically meaningful pork into a traffic light in the form of QA and whatnot and get an indestructible traffic light that operates for a century without being touched in return. People are questioning whether that's actually necessary for a system that's already the Nth layer of redundancy.
All those inspections, certifications, and other requirements exist for very good reasons. Reasons that more likely than not cost us blood and tears to realize their need.
Nobody's debating that those processes work. People are questioning whether or to what degree this system should be subject to them. Just because something touches aviation somehow is not a blank ticket to pour red tape at it to satisfy some ideological lust for the "perfectly safe" system. For example, the facility lighting around an airport is just normal lighting used on any other large commercial facility, off the shelf sodium bulbs, LEDs, halogens in off the shelf fixtures, the kind of stuff you buy from all myriad of online supply houses and local suppliers. The runway lights are subject to much more specific requirements (but still very relaxed compared to the lighting on actual aircraft). Where do the traffic lights fall on that spectrum? IDK, but seeing as the system is never gonna leave the ground I'm pretty inclined to ignore whatever the people who think it needs to be designed like an aircraft have to say.
> Reasons that more likely than not cost us blood and tears to realize their need.
If/when they mandate a traffic light system at JFK will that rule be "written in blood" as you people often like to say?
