You'd be surprised. Cars will burn a sign, but they'll stop dead when they see a person holding a sign.

You also have to watch for the pedestrians walking around and so on. It's actually a lot more involved than you think.

I did it a few times. Not hard, but it does matter a lot, and definitely not pointless.

I can't help but ask, how about a wax sculpture? hehe :)

But, yeah you have a point.

Those signs say stop on the other side and are used in conjuction with someone on the other end of the construction holding up the opposite sign so that a single lane can be used to handle traffic in two directions. That job would need to be automated with a traffic light.

In Germany, no-one is holding stop/slow signs at any construction site. This job is universally done by portable traffic lights.

In Germany, people respect traffic lights even when there's no one there to enforce your good behavior.

A smart traffic light that can count how any cars enter and exit the zone. It's perfectly possible to automate, but it may not be the best ROI around.

They are common in Sweden for slower roads and streets. I’m quite certain they don’t count the cars, instead just leaving enough time even for slow cars to pass through.

That also breaks down when they need to fully stop traffic from both sides so a equipment can be moved. How do you tell the automated lights to stop everything automatically when those instances are irregular.

You press a button. I’m not joking either, they have a way to program them quickly for exactly this reason. Set them on a cycle, or turn them to manual.

The system would also need to detect which direction the traffic was going. In morning rush hour, outbound would be much heaver than inbound (of your neighborhood) so it would typically be unidirectional.

I've seen such lights in remote construction sites on road trips. They do exist.

It’s not uncommon in the US West where you may have lengthy stretches of road that are single lane because of construction.

I was that guy as a kid, at least for road work. The role rotated through my crew while everyone else worked in the manhole or on the street. Part of the reason for it to be a human is to serve as a witness for the police when a distracted driver plows into the road crew. This was in the 1980s, I’m sure drivers pay much more attention today.

> This was in the 1980s, I’m sure drivers pay much more attention today.

Missing the /s. Drivers today are far worse than they were in the 80s.

I would say they are almost certainly less drunk now

But a lot more have been smoking weed.

TBF driving while tired is probably more dangerous than driving after smoking cannabis

I agree, but driving while high is not at all safe. Sure, it's less bad than drinking, but it's still more dangerous than driving when sober (and rested). Accident rates have gone up since legalization. [0,1,2]

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/21/auto-crashes-are-on-the-rise...

[1] http://gazette.com/study-finds-fatal-crashes-in-colorado-hav...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/what-...

It depends on what you measure. Crashes are going up ever so slightly vs population growth, but fatalities per crash has astoundingly been reduced by about 70%, which is to say that you were more than 3x as likely to die in crash in 1980 vs 2011.

That's because we have better cars now which offer better protection for passengers and pedestrians: seat belts, air bags, "softer" bumpers, collision detection, etc.

I don't know about now, but when minimum wage was $4.75 those guys were making $20.00 an hour. It was a highly coveted job in some circles. They are starting to automate it with portable traffic lights though.

I once saw a memorable setup on a fairly desolate piece of Queensland highway: There were three flagmen (as they are or were called Down Under) spaced over with a few hundred meters between them, each with a flag warning me to slow down, roadwork ahead. At the other end three others, of course, to take care of traffic in the opposite direction.

But here's the thing: There wasn't any roadwork in between. There had been, but everything was neatly packed away.

Then again, I've worked in public administration. Nothing will shock me.

The first lollypop bearer in each direction was indicating the presence of five other people at work on the road.

They are almost exclusively female Irish backpackers here in Australia from what I hear. Usually the only females on a crew.