Coming to a full stop at an intersection where it isn't necessarily required -- when there's high visibility in all directions and there's no traffic to be seen -- is inefficient and creates waste on multiple levels. It adds time, messes up the flow of traffic and adds braking and acceleration, which means more gasoline use. And unsignaled intersections (that is, intersections with stop signs) in fact have a higher accident rate than the more tricky rotaries, possibly because motorists know that attention to their surroundings is required at rotaries. The numbers don't lie: When unsignaled intersections are converted to rotaries, crashes drop 40 percent, injury crashes go down 76 percent and fatal crashes drop by 90 percent.

This led Lauder to create the stop sign/yield sign mash-up seen above. It encourages drivers approaching an intersection with multiple directions to alternate right-of-way, depending on traffic conditions, much in the way it's done at a four-way stop.

After the jump, check out a quick video of Lauder's speech at the TED conference in Long Beach, Calif.