Cities Tampering With Traffic Lights To Generate Revenue 736
Techdirt is reporting that there has been a rash of reports indicating that red light cameras are being used to generate revenue rather than to promote safety. "Time and time again studies have shown that if cities really wanted to make traffic crossings safer there's a very simple way to do so: increase the length of the yellow light and make sure there's a pause before the cross traffic light turns green (this is done in some places, but not in many others). Tragically, it looks like some cities are doing the opposite! Jeff Nolan points out that six US cities have been caught decreasing the length of the yellow light below the legal limits in an effort to catch more drivers running red lights and [increase] revenue."
Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Interesting)
The insurance industry and several other groups are opposed to eliminating the state law because they think there will be more rear-end collisions resulting from traffic cameras, precisely because studies done in other cities with traffic cameras actually bear this out. People don't want a ticket, so they slam on their brakes to stop, short yellow or no. OTOH, the studies show that there would be fewer T-bone collisions, which are the most common types of accidents involving intersections and amongst the most lethal.
So, they could always just use the fewer "T-bone" accidents as an excuse, and I think this is, in fact, what many cities have done in order to get the traffic cameras.
Welcome to 1984, citizen. Big Brother is watching you.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Informative)
It's hard for the camera companies to make any money (and pay for the cameras) if you have to give 100% to someone else.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
See http://www.motorists.org/blog/red-light-cameras/local-school-board-wants-ticket-camera-cash/ [motorists.org]
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who authorized such a royalty in the first place? The money generated by laws (or the breaking of said laws) should go to the government, not companies.
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why should they get any percentage? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is fully about revenue generation. It HAS to be, since it is a private company running the show. A private company is not out for the public good, it is out to make money.
This will end up costing you (citizen of the city/state) even more in the long run with increased insurance rates.
Sure, they tell you to pay the fine, and nothing goes on your record...HOWEVER, the statistic of a moving violation goes on the record. If you take into account the shortening of yellow light times just to raise the number of 'red light' violations for revenue...you are generating more and more statistics that your city/state has a severe problem with moving violations.
Guess what? Insurance companies base their rates on statistics like accidents and violation rates of the city/state. Yes...they will see this and happily jack everyone's insurance rates up, and will be happy to do it. Yep...you just gave the insurance companies a free excuse to make more money off the citizenry.
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Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think that's correct. We have redlight cameras in some Missouri cities and they're also operated by private companies and the cities get tiny portion of the fines. However if you don't pay the fines nothing happens. I received a red light ticket over a year ago and nothing has shown up on my record, but if I don't pay a normal speeding ticket or other traffic ticket there's warrants out for arrest the day after I miss the court date or date the ticket's due.
I'm beginning to think the redlight cameras are wholly operated by the private companies and they don't have any court appointed right to issue warrants or do anything anymore than any other business owner. Only thing I've received were some nasty letters saying to pay the fine, it doesn't even show up on credit.
Oh and the 6 cities they mentioned aren't the only cities doing this. I know of several lights locally that are timed faster than normal. I feel like the cities are playing chicken with real people's lives, testing to see if we'll kill each other by shaving a second off the yellow light. That'd be funny on a video game, not so funny in real life.
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Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Redlight cameras and the changing of the light timing is that people are getting burnt when there isn't enough time between the yellow light and for a normal person to come to a complete and safe stop. The entire idea of having to slam on the breaks to stop from running the light should be enough indication that either the posted speed limit is too fast or the light timing is too short.
After calculating a fraction of a second to allow for the driver to notice a yellow light, there should be enough time to come to a reasonable stop in any vehicle traveling on the roadway before the yellow goes red. That is just common sense. I mean following too close behind another vehicle is dictated by the speed and stopping distance plus reaction time of the vehicles. If the traffic lights don't at least figure that into the equation, it is rigged to rob people of their hard earned money.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Interesting)
If this is the intersection:
_| |__
_____
| |
And you're traveling like this:
_| |__
>>_____
| |
Then as long as you cross THIS point before Red, the camera isn't tripped:
_| |__
>>_|____
| |
So the real issue with having short yellow lights is not that a person doesn't have enough time to stop or enough time to clear the intersection.
The problem is that people think they'll have enough time to get past that magic line before the light turns red (that the yellow will hold that long) so they hit their gas and the yellow is so short that it turns red before the car passes that point and thusly the camera is tripped.
At least, that's how I read it.
Go to court, contest the fine, and show it w/ phys (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Go to court, contest the fine, and show it w/ p (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not have ridiculously short yellow light durations
Put a short amount of time while changing where ALL lights are red
Be in it for the citizens, not for profit
Which do you see happening first?
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Huh?? Who said his tires were bald? Good tires never skid in the rain? You don't know the road conditions, some old Ford could have dropped it's tranny fluid all over the road an hour earlier.
"2. Drive slower in the rain"
Did he say he was speeding? Do you know the speed limit there? We have red lights on roads with 55mph limits, how long would it take to stop when traveling 55mph in the rain? You're making a lot of assumptions here.
"3. Be more awa
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If you've driven in the north and south, as I suspect a tractor-trailer driver has.. you've ran into some damned short yellows and made a couple of "abbreviated" stops thereafter.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Informative)
light cameras just as fast as they can get them up.
Police review the video footage of any
vehicle that triggers the camera. If you're found
to have committed the offense, the ticket is
generated and mailed to you. They also send a link
along to the video where you can watch yourself
blow the light
You normally won't see a ticket if the light
was still yellow on entering the intersection.
Most folks who are seeing the violations are
blatantly blasting through the intersection
after the light has gone red.
So the way the system is set up currently, you
can tell fairly quickly if the light is cycling
faster than it should and if you truly deserved
the citation.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Informative)
A friend of my ex-wife once complained about being ticketed when she was in an accident. The light turned yellow, the driver in front of her stopped, and she rear-ended the other driver. Evil-X's friend was livid that the other driver had the gall to stop for a yellow light!
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah. Don't get behind me if you want to blow the red; I'm stopping for it--camera or no. And I'm not looking in my rear-view to see if I'm being tailgated. If you're following so close that I have to worry about it, tough, I'm not going to. I'm also going to brake to avoid skunks, large animals, children, vehicles pulling out of side streets and driveways, and other collision avoidance situations.
I won't "slam on the brakes" for a yellow light, but I may use more of my car's braking abilities for a yellow than I would if I was farther away. Heck, I still think "yellow" is mainly so people who've been waiting can finally make their left turns....
Anyone slamming on their brakes, with or without cameras around, isn't paying enough attention to traffic and the roadway, and is dangerous anyway.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:4, Informative)
More importantly, already being in the intersection means that you're not breaking the law when the light turns red -- it's only illegal to enter it under a red light.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you ever see the video where a group of vehicles decided to drive 55 MPH maximum (I think it was in the DC beltway). The result was some absurd traffic backup for miles.
If you combined a 55mph speed, with a following distance of every vehicle being able to stop if the car in front of them slammed on their brakes, the result would be that probably every highway on the Eastern seaboard would be gridlocked.
For most driving situations, you won't encounter a person slamming on their brakes for a situation that you cannot see in front of them. That is why these cameras are so dangerous, you create yet another situation where someone will slam on their brakes, for a condition that the car behind them can't predict (usually you can also see if a pedestrian walks out). It adds one more danger to the roads when it would actually be safer for the driveway to go through the intersection when it is yellow (which is what they are supposed to do if it is too late to stop when the yellow turns on)
A Meditation On The Speed Limit (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A Meditation On The Speed Limit (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoETMCosULQ [youtube.com]
And google video here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5366552067462745475 [google.com]
drew
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I was driving up the 5 in OC area during normal morning rush-hour. The average speed for every vehicle including the big rigs was about 10 to 15mph. To my right there was a big rig in the far right lane and just as we pass an on-ramp, a car speeds down the on-ramp and tries to beat the big rig. Of course he didn't win and lost his left rear-view mirror in the process.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Traffic safety laws should be about just that: traffic safety. They shouldn't be a backdoor tax. If we want optimal traffic safety solutions to be chosen, we have to eliminate the financial incentive for suboptimal ones.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Interesting)
Really? Suppose I'm used to yellow lights lasting 6 seconds, and I know I can get through the light in 5 seconds. Now the city changes the yellow light length to 3 seconds, without warning. Do I have a choice then?
I really really hate people who run red lights. But I hate entrapment more.
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What's more, the city made this change illegally. If they set the duration of the yellow light below the legal limit, and you've run a red light right as the light changed to red, I would imagine you'd have a pretty good case in court. Assuming the cop actually shows up to court, and your case isn't just thrown out because he's not there.
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Where do you live? Here in MA you have to show up 3 times with the cop as a noshow before they toss it. Worse, they don't always require the cop who wrote the ticket to sh
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Funny)
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True story:
When I first moved to Chicago, my knowledge of organised crime was what I saw in movies, and the idea of bribing a police officer was similarly the stuff of fiction. Within my first few days there
call your traffic engineering dept. (Score:3, Informative)
In my field, I work with city depts quite a bit. I'm in southern California by the way. Each city has its own traffic engineering department. The timing on lights is based on traffic surveys which are typically requested by the city whenever a development goes in which will affect traffic patters. This has to be paid for by the developer. So though there are DOT and county guidlines, CalTrans in my case. The city does have jurisdiction over the timing of the light.
Now as a citizen it is your right to attend
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Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Insightful)
if the light turns yellow when you've hit the "point of no return", the light will be red before you get out of the intersection, resulting in city_revenue++.
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At least thats what they told us in traffic school.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's one of the big problems with cameras. They have to be programmed on some hard basis like "picture gets taken when light goes red." Also, since the camera companies get a cut of the profits, there is incentive to get as many as possible.
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The specifications are built in with a degree of margin. Every yellow light I have encountered is way more than adequate for you to decide if it is safe to come to a stop or not.
If it can be established that the lights are too short for adequate
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you can't reasonably stop, you're supposed to go through, because coming to a screeching halt in the middle of the intersection is worse.
If they shorten the yellow light to the point where you can neither stop, nor go through the light, then yeah you might as well ditch the yellow light because that defeats the entire purpose. Because then you don't have a choice to do something safe.
Do you know how they determine the length that the yellow light should be? Basically, the make some assumptions about a car's typical breaking power and the posted speed limit, and measure how close to the light a car can be before it can stop "reasonably". Then, they calculate how long it would take to get from that point through the intersection at the speed limit. Tack on some time for human reaction time and the time needed to make the break/go on judgment call, and you've got the minimum safe yellow light time.
And then they pass a law that says you can't have a yellow light time shorten than that for a given speed limit.
And then these money-grubbing municipalities shorten the yellow light below that time.
What part of this is defensible to you?
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Informative)
If you see the light turn yellow, so can the people behind you and it is totally their fault if they rear-end you.
I understand and agree with you that the learned behavior of most people is to try to gun their engines when the light turns yellow. However, that behavior is still wrong, ultimately, and causes accidents for the reason I stated above.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Informative)
Yelow means "clear the intersection".
It doens't mean "slam on your brakes" and it doesn't mean "floor it".
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Interesting)
Really? Suppose I'm used to yellow lights lasting 6 seconds, and I know I can get through the light in 5 seconds. Now the city changes the yellow light length to 3 seconds, without warning. Do I have a choice then?
Yellow, read light ahead, blinking green lights. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:4, Informative)
Not all states. From Texas's Transportation Code, Chapter 544.007: [state.tx.us]
(1) turn right
or
(2) turn left, if the intersecting streets are both one-way streets and a left turn is permissible.
(e) An operator of a vehicle facing a steady yellow signal is warned by that signal that:
(1) movement authorized by a green signal is being terminated; or
(2) a red signal is to be given.
(d) A municipality that fails to comply with Subsection (c) may not impose or attempt to impose a civil or administrative penalty against a person, including the owner of a motor vehicle or an operator, for a failure to comply with the instructions of a traffic-control signal located at the applicable intersection.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say two car lengths is about 40 feet (we're generously assuming really big cars). At 35, you *might* be able to come to a stop if you have ABS and lay on the brakes as hard as you can, but it's hardly an optimal condition. At 45 mph, there aren't too many cars that will do it, period. Above that, it's simply not reasonable.
The officer that pulled you over doesn't know what he's talking about, and is probably confusing the "two second" rule that applies when following because stopping distance naturally changes with speed. At 45 mph, that two seconds equates to more than 130 feet, or about seven car lengths, and that assumes that you're not dealing with a fixed limit (a gradually slowing car vs. a static stop line). I guess this all just goes to prove that traffic enforcement has always been and will likely always be a cash cow for municipalities, safety be damned.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I am arguing against is the idea that yellow means "floor the gas". The people arguing on this thread are complaining about how taking off a couple of seconds means they no longer can make it through the intersection when their duty was to stop rather than try to push the envelope.
I think you're arguing with yourself on that point. Everybody else is saying this:
When the light turns yellow, at some speed under the speed limit, I have two legal choices: brake or don't brake. Let's assume that gunning it isn't even an option. At some distance from the light you will not be able to safely stop in time to avoid ending up in the intersection. In those situations, you should continue going under yellow. Problem is, if the light's too short, there may be a certain region where you can't make it through without accelerating OR brake in time without ending up in the intersection. That's what people are trying to point out - it's not that people are trying to 'push it', it's that the light can get short enough that there's no legal, safe choice. And that's bad.
The fact is, when jurisdictions start playing with the yellow interval like that, rear-end accidents go way up. So the people who jam on the brakes in an attempt to not get ticketed just get rear ended. That shouldn't occur, and I think those people in particular should have legal recourse against the city/county.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:4, Insightful)
The length of the yellow is only relevant if you want to know "can I exit the intersection before the yellow ends". Anybody who says any such thing about "knowing" the length of the yellow is therefore disobeying the law.
Now there *are* arguments to be made:
First of all, it is possible for the yellow to be so short that a car which is at the position at which point stopping before the intersection safely is not possible, and instead continues at it's current velocity, will not reach the exit point of the intersection before the yellow ends. This is the main accusation against cities, since that by definition means that somebody completely obeying the law will get a ticket. However whether this length is too short still has ZERO effect on what you should do when you see the yellow, it can, as I said, be 1 microsecond long, and that still makes no difference in whether the safe deceleration will stop you before you enter the intersection.
The other argument is the rear-ending one. This argument is basically "other drivers are going to assume I will disobey the law and by not doing what they expect I am endangering myself". That is a valid argument, but it does not apply if there are no cars behind you!
In any case I am sure the cities are rigging their lights to collect revenue, but I am pretty shocked at the attitude of some posters here at rationalizing their own bad driving practices.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:4, Interesting)
First, you have more than 1 second to stop. Lets say you are exactly 1 second away from the intersection at the moment the light turns yellow and you decelerate and stop at the intersection (thus not violating the law). Since you would have covered that distance in 1 second at your original velocity, and since by decelerating you are slowing down, it must take you more than 1 second to reach the intersection and stop (the light will turn red while you are still moving).
The *real* problem is that there *is* some point at which you are too close to the intersection to stop safely in that remaining distance. This could be when you are *less* than the 1 second length of the yellow away. At that point what you are supposed to do is continue at your current velocity through the intersection. Since you are not decelerating, the time it takes you to stop is irrelevant. However the yellow could be so short that at your current speed you will not exit the intersection before the yellow ends. This means you will violate the law, yet your other decision would be to make an "unsafe stop" and thus no matter what you will do you will violate the law. This is what the complaints are about.
You can see that the length of the yellow has nothing to do with how long it takes you to stop. Imagine the crossing road is very wide and/or you are travelling very slow, so that it takes 10 seconds to drive across it. If the yellow is 9 seconds long and turns on just as you enter the intersection, you cannot obey the law, even if you can stop is 1 second. So again comparing the length of the yellow to stopping time is irrelevant.
Also in reality, there is a far larger "how long it takes to decide whether to stop or continue" time. This time must be added to the length of the yellow and is probably much larger than the time it takes to cross the road or any other time.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Funny)
"I watched you very carefully. Red means stop, green means go, yellow means go-very-fast."
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Funny)
From these experiences, I can tell you that the rules of traffic lights are very simple:
Red light stop, green light go, yellow light go very fast.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Funny)
4. Profit!
That is the whole point of the article. Cities are making a profit doing this. Finally, a use for "4. Profit!" that isn't offtopic.
Re:Grounds to contest? (Score:5, Funny)
Hey! Show a little respect. Roscoe has to get his revenue money somehow. He goes through 5 to 10 cop cars a day. You think after a while he'd start to notice those pre-fabricated ramps someone keeps putting all over the roads in Hazard County.
Bastards (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bastards (Score:5, Funny)
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Not only that, but since you'd have to stop at each light, you'd be backing up traffic that was going the speed the lights are timed for.
Red Shift (Score:3, Funny)
Should screw up the radar too.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Red Shift?
Acording to Dr. Roy G. Biv, redshifting yellow light would make it appear more orange (or . . .you know . . . red). Of course, you could blueshift the yellow light into green, you just need to go through the intersection backawards. At relativistic speeds.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Blue shift (while more correct) sounds like something involving the police, and attempting to drive my car at speeds approaching C on public roads.
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(1-2 seconds is NOT going to add significantly to congest
the pause between llight changes (Score:2)
Doesn't this already happen in Boston?
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Not news (Score:5, Interesting)
Depends on where you live.... (Score:5, Informative)
The biggest solution to decreasing accidents at intersections is actually not to increase the amber light and provide more delay before the cross street's green -- the biggest solution is to decrease the number of light cycles per day. The fewer cycles, the fewer accidents per day, even if the same number of accidents occur per cycle.
The trick is to measure the volume of through traffic on both streets per hour on weekdays and weekends and adjust the light timings accordingly, finding the "sweet spot" between causing congestion due to long waits and causing accidents due to short waits.
The long amber and green light delays are only an aid that can help tweak the system once these other factors are accounted for.
Of course, in many cities, the amber light is referred to by drivers as the "go faster" light -- having a long amber actually promotes speeding through intersections in such cities, and results in more pedestrian injuries and deaths.
Re:Depends on where you live.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Depends on where you live.... (Score:5, Interesting)
It was professional, courteous, and efficient. Why can't we do it? No long amber or green is required. Professional drivers make all the difference. I loved it. Returning to the states was very scary as the traffic would launch at a green light regardless if the intersection was clear!... Intersections are very dangerous here. It's not the lights. It's the professionalism. On another note.. If picked up for intoxicated driving, you got your first phone call after a 3 day dry out period. They have very little problems with repeat offenders.
Motives aside... it's even more complicated (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, increasing the length of the yellow light and the pause while all lights are red will unarguably reduce the number of accidents... TODAY. Humans are learning creatures, and in particular they use their learning abilities to engage in "risk homeostasis". They will tend to expose themselves to the same level of risk of running a red light (or more precisely,
As the quote goes... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:As the quote goes... (Score:5, Insightful)
So there in a nutshell is the difference (Score:3, Insightful)
4 times (Score:2)
Red-to-green (Score:2)
My impression is that this is a regional difference in the US: it's the norm in the East and a rarity in the West.
The Six Cities are... (Score:5, Informative)
Actual story is at Motorists.org (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.motorists.org/blog/red-light-cameras/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/ [motorists.org]
So while indeed this is interesting, it is not particularly "new" nor "news." Cities have been doing this for over a decade, and they occasionally get caught, but more often than not, they do not. They will continue to push for the cameras since they generate virtually "free" revenue (free in the sense of little manpower and little initial investment cost).
Doesn't surprise me (Score:4, Informative)
The entire system is set up to make money and it's as clear as day. When a speed camera is placed at the bottom of a steep hill or in the middle of a 2-mile straight, clear stretch of road (with a tree hiding it), it's pretty unrealistic to claim they're purely for safety reasons
Link to the original article. (Score:4, Insightful)
The cities involved are Union City, CA, Dallas and Lubbock, TX, Nashville and Chattanooga, TN, Springfield, MO.
As others have pointed out, if the government were truly interested in safety and not revenue, they would put up signs well ahead of the intersections. They would do the same with speed cameras - find where people are driving to fast for conditions (with accident data to back it up), put up a speed camera and then put up a sign
Of course, if safety were actually a reasonable cause for speeding, we would have speed limits actually based around the 85th percentile and other statistically proven safe policies.
Instead we have the police using tickets as a revenue source.
Yellow Lights Rock! (Score:4, Funny)
Sometimes I don't make it before the red light, but thats okay - I havn't hit anyone yet!
Dallas bucks the trend (Score:5, Interesting)
To the surprise of just about everyone, the cameras worked! People actually started slowing down in time to stop if the light turned yellow. The city became safer.
But there was an inevitable downside... the cameras' revenue no longer supported their operating cost.
Once again, the unexpected happened. Dallas did NOT tweak yellow light timing to generate more tickets. Instead, they turned off some of the cameras. Apparently, the contract with the third-party camera operator has a clause that reduces the monthly charge from $3,800 per camera to "a fraction" of that cost (blame the Morning News for failing to tell whether that fraction is 1/10 or 9/10). So they're turning some of them off, noting that "most motorists won't realize this and behave as if the cameras are operational."
Which is what we wanted all along.
The city of Dallas is mired in several messes of its own making, resulting in high-profile FBI probes and even a suicide pact [dallasmetropolis.com] between two of its best-known (and most-troubled) behind-the-scenes power brokers. But in this case, the city comes shining through. And the Rangers won a double-header last night, too. Wonders never cease.
More info available from the Dallas Morning News [dallasnews.com] article.
More info NOT available from "theNewspaper.com", a self-described "journal of the politics of driving" that never hesitates to pass on a story of red light camera *abuse* [thenewspaper.com]. I sent a link to the DMN story, but it never showed up. Agenda much?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed -- I noticed that after I saw the links to the real FA (since the original FA was apparently content-
As a traffic engineer... (Score:5, Informative)
The All-Red interval should also be 3-6 seconds long, and should be based upon the geometry and size of the intersection, as well as the approach speeds. The purpose of the All-Red interval is to ensure that the intersection is clear of crossing traffic prior to assigning the Right-of-Way to a side street or pedestrian crossing. To determine the appropriate length of an All-Red interval, you need measure the distance from the stop line to the far side of the intersection (typically past the far crosswalk) and determine the approach speed. 30 m.p.h. = 44 ft/sec, so if the distance from the stop line to the far crosswalk is 88 feet, the appropriate All-Red interval would be 2 seconds. To be conservative, you can also add the length of a typical vehicle (~25 ft.) into the equation.
With that knowledge in hand, you may be able to fight a red light-running ticket if you believe the timing provided for you was too short. Those are the general guidelines across the US. Individual states, counties, and cities may have different criteria, though.
And cameras may even have a negative impact? (Score:5, Informative)
The city of Baltimore has been under constant scrutiny for red light camera policies that appear to be unsafe and/or in financial conflict with the public interest. In the report mentioned here [thenewspaper.com], Administrative Judge Keith "One T" Mathews wrote the following summary:
The one thing that red light cameras have always consistently accomplished, however, is revenue generation on a large scale.
Crap, Crap, Crap (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to work in Santa Clara, CA, on a street where the drivers where demonstrably crazy. It had 2 lanes plus a center left turn lane. The 35 MPH posted limit was eminently reasonable. Yet people routinely drove much faster, even using the center lane as a passing lane. Worst of all, it was a short street, so that speeding cut a few seconds at most off your commute.
One day, I narrowly escaped a headon collision with a particularly stupid speeder-weaver. I pried my fingers off the steering wheel, went to my office, and wrote a letter to the local police chief detailing conditions on this road, and suggesting a few minor improvements in enforcement.
I didn't get a few minor improvements — I got a major crackdown. I guess that letter was even scarier than I realized. A lot of my co-workers got ticketed. Did any of them admit to being bad drivers. No of course not. They were all perfect drivers. They all agreed that Santa Clara must need the extra revenue.
Face it, bozos. None of you is as good a driver as you think you are. If you think yellow lights are two short, don't fucking race them.
Re:Crap, Crap, Crap (Score:4, Insightful)
For intance, the village of New Rome [wikipedia.org] is a classic case of a speed trap. At one point, the village of 60 had 14 part-time police officers and was grossing $400,000 annually from traffic stops.
Obviously that's an extreme example. At the same time, don't be daft. Anything that can generate revenue can be abused.
I'm a pizza driver in Chattanooga (Score:3, Informative)
As for myself, I just risk the rear-ender and tend to slam on my brakes when I see camera lights go yellow. Those $50 tickets can add up.
Legal yellow times (Score:5, Interesting)
Posted Speed or Prima Facie Speed Minimum Yellow Interval
MPH KPH Yellow SECONDS
25 40 3.0
30 48 3.2
35 56 3.6
40 64 3.9
45 72 4.3
50 80 4.7
55 89 5.0
60 97 5.4
65 105 5.8
Sorry, the lameness filter prevents this from being easily read.
Re:How about personal responsibility? (Score:5, Funny)
you mean drivers speed through as the light at the top turns grey whilst all the others have to wait at the grey light?
...but are being abused in some cases. (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, the original, and perhaps main intent in most installations is still to discourage the behavior of running red lights. But the problem is that the traffic control systems are being tweaked to maximize revenue, and not safety (obviously, the whole point of this story). The system now takes on a whole new purpose for its existence, and consequently works against its original intent.
It's akin to putting a 55MPH (or 90kph) speed limit, followed by a 25MPH (or 40kph) then followed by a 55MPH sign all w
Re: (Score:3, Informative)