I guess it will lessen the chance of pedestrians getting caught in the middle of an intersection and plowed down by cars, but if the cars are paying attention it should not be an issue anyways. I know that I personally, will cross almost any time the orange hand is still flashing, so I'm usually at the opposite curb just when the light turns green and sometimes people try to turn right into me. I think these timers may reduce the chance of me running across the road, but again thats never been an issue really.

I'm already pretty good at timing lights. I think on a bike, especially when at the front of the line and track standing there is no way somebody changing CDs in their car is going to be paying enough attention to beat you off the line so if anything I think this may make cars better at jumping at greens and right turning in front of cyclists, because they can just look up every once-in-a-while and see how long it is until the green. I hope this doesn't turn intersections into little elimination-style drag races where people can see exactly how many seconds until they get stuck at a red.