I have no idea where I heard this rumor, but I can remember it as far back as when I was getting my license. I heard from a friend of a friend that it was possible to hit all green lights heading both north and south on Ryan Street if you maintained a certain speed. I can remember in my teenage years trying it in the evenings, but traffic would always mess it up. I would get through a few, but it never failed that I would get stopped in traffic. It seems like there is some validation to this rumor. Doing a touch of research, traffic engineers call it the Green Wave. The wave can either be preset or use sensors along the roadways to maintain a better flow of traffic and reduce emissions.

I have experimented with this theory for years, but today was the day I wanted to actually give it a shot. Seeing as though there was no school, and hardly any traffic this morning, I thought this morning might be the day. The rumors I had heard over the years was that if you started at Ryan and College, you could hit every green light if you maintained a speed of 37 to 38 mph. For legal reasons, I am not encouraging you to speed. I am not saying whether I was speeding or not on Ryan Street, but the speed limit is 35mph until you cross over 12th Street and it drops to 30mph.

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I actually started this test at McNeese and Ryan Street. I turned on red as soon as I saw the lights turn green facing Ryan. I got up to the test speed as I crossed in front of McDonald's headed North. The light at Sale and Ryan was still red as I got closer. I decided to back down just a touch to see. Sure enough, the light turned green! A smile crept over my face.

As I got down to College Street, the light was red. Nope, not gonna make it. Just as I went to tap the brakes to take cruise control off, it went green and so did the one at Prien Lake Road. Dear reader, I felt like I was in a spy movie and the nerdy guy with the fancy computer screens was controlling the lights for me. I hit every single green light until I got to 12th street! At 12th, I ended up having to wait for just a second or two for it to go green after stopping. Maybe I could have adjusted my speed, but we were doing this for science.

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The 12th Street light went green, and I did 30mph around the corner headed towards 7th. The light there suddenly went green. I ended up finally getting hung up at a red light as I was turning left onto Broad Street to head to the radio station. This isn't the first time I have tried this experiment, but it's the first time I really tried to do it with some scientific purpose.

I don't suggest you speeding in any area around Lake Charles, it can be very dangerous. Also, it's against the law. However, if you are in a bind, it seems to be a legitimate theory.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

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