maddyfish

I have 2 residences. One is a very hilly area. My car is equipped with brakes. GOing down a hill is no excuse to speed. Who cares if you ride your brakes?

Unrealistic? They said the same thing in 1970 about catalytic converters, and the same thing in 1980 about fuel injection, and they say that same thing now about higher CAFE standards.
Just legislate it, and let the car buyers pay for it.

maddyfish

So yellow light time should be completely random.

kendall

If the goal was to make the roads safer, they would have a cop on each corner. Visual enforcement does a lot more to increasing safety than a camera.
Red light cameras do nothing to address other issues, someone could be drunk off their ass and incapable of driving straight, but still not fly through a red light.
A car could be stolen, thief runs a red, and the only thing they can do is say well he went through the intersection near your house a minute later.
Someone could hit a cyclist, then run a red light, but since the cyclist was hit from behind he never got the plate number, so the driver has time to go home and clean up his car.
A group of hoods assault someone and steal **********, and get away with it. Some old lady walking home has a heart attack at the corner. Some kid throws a bottle out a car window and hits a cyclist.
In all those scenarios, a police officer doing his job could have cought them. Instead, you only have evidence that someone ran a red light nearby, with nothing else to connect them to the crime.

If the goal was safety, or to reduce crime, the police would be highly visible. Instead they hide behind cameras to collect fines.

Ken.

dhofmann

The red light cameras free up the police to catch criminals instead of spending time writing up red light violations.

kendall

What I am saying is that a visible cop on the street will do more to prevent crime than all the threats of possible punishment combined.

As good as it sounds to hear that they are trying to catch criminals, Wouldn't it be better if the crime didn't happen in the first place? In most cases, if the cop was there and visible, the crime would not have occured. Have you ever noticed how much better people drive when a cop is nearby?

Most camera tickets aren't even classed as moving violations, they are treated as no more serious than a parking ticket with no points on your license. But for most people, a point on their license would do more to change their behavior than any fine. The safest driver I ever knew only became safe after reaching 10 points on his license, after that he was the best driver you would ever see.

Ken.

Nestor

Great. Regulation and enforcement begetting more enforcement.

See my earlier post for the least expensive, yet least revenue-generating solution.

noisebeam

speeding and tailgating don't increase because of the red light cameras - the enforcement need for those is independent

see article about tailgating enforcement:
https://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...lgate1204.html

Nestor

People will tailgate in dense traffic, and slamming on the brakes at 30mph in a 30mph zone at a yellow light that is intentionally kept short to generate a ticket is asking for trouble.

noisebeam

Here there are no intersections with cameras that have intentionally short yellows. They are either 4.0 or 4.3 sec (they are published) depending on PSL. (40 or 45mph). If one drives at or below the PSL it is exceeding easy to not run a red.

unterhausen

I figure if they didn't have the lights on the main drag sequenced so you are stopping at nearly every one, they wouldn't have as many red light runners. Then again, our government has decided against the cameras and we don't seem to have a horrible problem with it anyway.

drew55

So then it really becomes state indorsed speeding through a school zone. I'm sure lawyers will waste little time and have both fun and serious profit finding the city/county/state to be the one with the deepest pockets to go after even higher settlements if and when there's an accident involving someone in one of those school zones.

alhedges

Red light cameras can be an effective tool to enhance safety. Or they can enhance revenue while doing little for safety. It all depends on how they are used.

Typically red light cameras are not installed and manned by municipalities. Instead, a private company approaches the municipality and offers to install the red light cameras for free, man them (or reimburse LE for manning them, and pay the municipality some amount of money per year (say $200,000). In exchange, the company gets to keep the money generated by the cameras.

Initially, things went about as you might imagine under these circumstances: the companies installed cameras not in the most dangerous intersections, but in intersections where people were more likely to run red lights. In some cases, the companies even shortened the yellow lights.

This situation was unsatisfactory to everyone but the company involved, obviously.

Since those early days, municipalities (or the state government) has imposed stricter requirements on red light cameras - by requiring that the lights only be installed at the most collision prone intersections, for example, and prohibiting reducing the yellow (or, in some cases, requiring that the yellow be 5 seconds, either on all lights or on lights with red light cameras).

Under these circumstances, red light cameras have resulted in measurably fewer injuries (as noted above, rear-end collisions are much less serious than T collisions that are generally the type of collision resulting from running a red light).

But, yeah, eventually people are going to stop running red lights. Which is not ideal if you are a company whose revenue comes from people running red lights. Although it is otherwise an almost unmitigated good...

bkrownd

You don't drive in the mountains much? Engine braking often isn't very effective. My efficient little 4-banger is very limited in its engine braking ability on modest slopes. "Speed limits" are nonsense anyhow. Safety is the ultimate guideline, not little numbers painted on signs.

Digital_Cowboy

Which is evidenced by how motorists will slow down when there is a decoy car in an area with a high rate of speeding or what have you. They'll see the car and not know if it's a dummy behind the wheel with the radar gun or a real cop and slow down.

Would a red light camera pick up a cyclist running a red light? If it did how would the police notify the offender?

Digital_Cowboy

If one is hitting "every" light while it is red, that suggests that they are timed with traffic at a specific speed and the person(s) hitting them all while red is NOT driving the posted speed limit.

Alox

These should be standard equipment at any intersection with push-button signals for cyclists and pedestrians. I see a lot more drivers running reds when I am biking, than I do when I am driving. I think that drivers are more likely to run a red if they don't think that 'real' traffic will be coming at them through the intersection.

Also, this might be a bit hard to do in jurisdictions where license plates are only required on the rear of vehicles, but the cameras should photograph the cabin / driver of the vehicle, and fines should be doubled for drivers who run reds while on cellphones, texting, coddling pets, etc.

Currently my jurisdiction (British Columbia Canada) has red light cameras at major "high incident" intersections, but for some reason, the cameras are only turned on occasionally.

bkaapcke

Twice I have been waiting in court for the civil calendar to be called and they were going through the camera tickets. Both times 2 or 3 people were in on their third photo red light run. The fines were close to $1,000.00 and the DMV would be suspending their licenses for a year. One time the judge said; "looks like it'll take a bus pass to slow you down". He's right.

Bottom line; the cameras are weeding out the chronically bad drivers and getting them into suspended license situations. bk

alhedges

This is true. But cops are very expensive.

unterhausen

If you think about what you've written, there is an assumption of rationality at the basis of your statement. Rationality is not a given, and not in evidence. I'm bike commuting now, so I can't tell you if the light timing is still the same as it was when I was driving more. But I would vary my speeds to try to figure out how to hit the lights when they are green. So far, the only people I've seen hit many lights in a row were going faster than I'm willing to drive on a busy street in city limits. There were a series of lights that you could hit on green if you went exactly the speed limit. That lasted a couple of months, then they changed it for some unfathomable reason. Too many people doing the speed limit I suppose.

On my end of town, the road is too big for the traffic it sees, and they really aren't causing any significant problems by using the traffic lights for "traffic calming." Except I believe that it drives people onto side streets where they can run stop signs without penalty. On the other end of town, I see a lot of people that have been driven nuts by the traffic light timing. Traffic is constantly jammed up from early in the afternoon until late. There are a number of side streets that trip the lights immediately even though the side street sees 1/1000th of the main drag traffic volume. I expect they are going to be driven to make some kind of road improvements even though they are causing the problems with the light timing.

Ed Holland

One idea of mine fpr major routes was to have the next red light automatically triggered by any speeding vehicle(s) with warnings to that going too fast is just going to slow you down. Unfortunately I think the psychology involved is too subtle, even though everyone stopped at the next light would know who was responible...

invisiblehand

Skepticism is generally a good thing. And I think it is well placed here since I know little about the IIHS.

I thought that generally people do not get points for tickets issued by red light cameras. If that is true, what would the bias source be for the IIHS?

invisiblehand

I don't know if you are serious, but it is an interesting thought.

Alox

I saw a red runner on my ride in today. I rode up to the light, and activated the button to cross a four-lane (major arterial) road. A driver (the only driver) approaching the intersection was about 250 metres away from the light when he saw it turn yellow, and actually sped up to try to beat the red.

He lost the race; the light turned red for him (and green for me) about 2 seconds before he arrived at the intersection, but he went right through the intersection - despite the light being red - and travelling at more than twice the speed limit (about 120km/h in a 50km/h zone), giving me "the finger" in response to my protest as he went on his way.

I see a lot of this type of behaviour at this particular intersection and I think that a red light camera would do a lot of good to identify these kinds of reckless drivers, and either get them off the streets, or make them pay for the risks they cause for other road users. Photos, fines and points.

StrangeWill

As a motorist, I agree.

I just pay some bloody attention, it's not that hard to not blow red lights.

Yellows just need to be a standard duration per 5mph of speed limit on the road or something, for safe stopping and all.

If I had total disregard for my safety, I'd actually jump out into the intersection with my car as soon as it snaps green, just to watch him lock them up and slide through the intersection. I really really hate red light runners.

StrangeWill

Agreed here, a real driving course and test required for a license would work MUCH better than just making everyone obey the speed limit but still be completely incompetent in any situation other than nice dry straight asphalt.