Stormin Mormon wrote:
There is a Real Deals Dollar store near me. They do have AAA cells,
twenty for a buck. I bought several packages. Wonders, they won't run
a three cell light. I find out after some head scratching, that about
a third of the batteries in the packs were dead. Still a good price.

I hadn't thought of that, about the traffic lights. Sounds penny
wise, and pound foolish.

Nah, makes a great deal of sense. A bulb in a traffic light lasts what? Say
six years. An intersection has a minimum of 12 bulbs (more for left turn and
other stuff). That means the city has to visit the intersection twice a year
to replace a bulb. Counting the driver, the bulb-changer, and two
apprentices to hold the shovels upright, it costs the city $100 per visit,
or $200/year to keep the signals in your town working.

Assuming an LED has a lifetime five times that of an incandescent, and an
LED traffic light has, like, 30 of the damn things, it's also evident that
the light doesn't need attention until about 1/3 of them don't work. So the
city has to visit the intersection - for the purpose of bulb maintenance -
only once a decade or so.

Meanwhile, the power consumption of the things is way less, so the city
saves on its electric bill.