The fact that this concept took this long to come up with is a bit sad.  And the other fact that it hasn’t been installed in busy roads is even worse.  Try to wrap your head around the Sand Glass traffic light designed by Thanva Tivawong.  Its design is inspired by the hour glass, the physical object and the famous Windows “wait” mouse icon.  Implementing the hour glass concept into the traffic light is genius, really.  Brightly lit LED pixels change color (red, yellow, green) to designate wait, ready, and go, respectively–we’re used to that already.  When it acts like an hour glass, drivers can get a more precise sense of almost exactly when the traffic light will change states.  The designer also included a countdown timer; the yellow state will read “3, 2, 1” when its about to change color to green and prompt the driver to “go” or change to red and prompt “stop”.  This is a concept that needs to become a reality!  We like having a sense of progress status, don’t we?  Look in the gallery below for more conceptual visuals.

[Via YankoDesign; Engadget]