2 Bloomfield Area Students Solve the 'Yellow Light Dilemma Zone'

Two students at the acclaimed International Academy in Bloomfield Hills have solved a traffic conundrum that has confounded motorists for years.

The students — Seraj Desai, of Bloomfield Township, and Joe Chamma, of West Bloomfield Township — came up with a simple but elegant solution to the “yellow light dilemma zone,” the area in which a motorist must decide whether to stop or proceed through an intersection once the signal changes from green to yellow.

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The students suggested to the Road Commision of Oakland County that if three 24-inch diameter circles were painted on the road surface, at an appropriate distance from the signal, they would signal to the driver that if he or she passed the circles before the signal changed to yellow, they should proceed.

If the driver had not yet crossed the circles when the signal changed, the two suggested, and then he or she should stop.

As part of the proposal, the students employed a formula to determine where the circles should be placed, taking into account the speed limit on the road and the duration of the yellow-light interval on the traffic signal. They also proposed two specific test locations and provided installation instructions for the circles.

“These two students are proof that we have good reasons to be optimistic about the future,” road commission board Chairman Ron Fowkes said in a statement. “With no incentive to do so, they took it upon themselves to try to find a solution to what they perceived as a public safety concern.”

RCOC Deputy Managing Director/County Highway Engineer Gary Piotrowicz and the road commission’s Traffic-Safety Department worked with the students to fine-tune their proposal. The proposal was then submitted to the Federal Highway Administration, seeking approval to implement the plan on a limited test basis.

The FHWA didn’t approve implementation of the proposal, but Piotrowicz said the initiative was laudable.

"The fact that these two high school students were thinking about traffic-safety issues, and took the time to put this detailed proposal together and submit it to us is very impressive," Piotrowicz said. "I expect we'll see a lot more great things out of these students in the future."

Image: From left, Road Commission of Oakland County vice chairman Eric Wilson, Joe Chamma, RCOC Chair Ron Fowkes, Seraj Desai and RCOC board member Gregory Jamian.