http://www.phantomplate.com/photoblocker.html

The amount of time that the light is yellow is the key here… if they wanted to improve traffic flow, the amount of time that the light is green could be shortened. It may not have any effect, but there’s far more green time than yellow throughout the course of a given day. By making the yellow time shorter, two things are accomplished. First, unfortunately, those accustomed to the standard length of yellow time will, by and large, become inadvertent “red light runners” as the result of their unfamiliarity with the abbreviated time, potentially with disastrous results. And second, it will resultantly increase the number of tickets sent out for such infractions. Simple math.

Let’s hope that there are some class action lawsuits around the corner. People whose family members have been killed by runners of red lights deserve to know what their public officials have been up to.

The two cabdrivers simultaneously decided to pull out from behind the cars in front of them and take the center lane — which, if they had succeeded, would have given them a faster start when the light changed. They were moving like the flippers on a pinball game, and I was heading toward them like the pinball.

I spotted what they were doing the instant they began to move. It was one of those lightning calculation moments. I can’t claim that I consciously realized that (1.) they were going to run into each other; (2.) their collision was going to block the lane, meaning I was going to have to stop two full car lengths sooner than I’d calculated; and (3.) there was no way I could stop in time.

I floored the accelerator and dived through the intersection. The light above me turned red as I passed under it. Behind me there was a tremendous crash as the two cabs ran into each other, and at the same moment were rammed by the cab that had been coming up behind me. That third cab didn’t have enough time to stop either.

I don’t feel guilty about the accident. If the cabs hadn’t been engaging in pointlessly aggressive driving, it wouldn’t have happened. I couldn’t have prevented it. And if I’d braked, I’d have hit the cabs in front of me and been hit by the one behind. All I did was subtract my car from the collision.

There are London junctions where all you do is sit and wait. This makes everybody impatient, and helps them to become less safe drivers.

Traffic signals should be fair to vehicles coming from all directions, and, of course, to crossing pedestrians. They are not tools to try to persuade people to leave the car at home.

Nothing positive has been done on London roads since the Red Routes were introduced maybe twenty years ago to keep main routes clear at busy times. Everything since then has been restriction and constriction.

Good traffic rules and good traffic design leads to better driving.

Red light cameras cause more accidents, and not just because drivers slam their brakes to avoid getting a robo-ticket — also because the optimal money-making strategy for red-light cams is to make them less safe.

Can we have references on this? It’s a great story but has anyone studied this?

That is a completely different problem, and unfortunately, red light cameras don’t do much to help it. My understanding of how most redlight cameras work is that you will only be cited if you enter the intersection after the light has changed. If you enter while the light is green or yellow, you won’t be cited if you don’t clear the intersection before it turns red. Unfortunately, that means automated enforcement is useless against these sort of infractions. On the other hand a cop writing citations can be extremely effective against both these sorts of offenses, and they actually decrease crashes all around rather than just fatal ones. Seems like the better solution to me.

If you go to the website that originally broke the story, http://www.motorists.org, and browse around, you’ll find some very interesting reading.

http://www.blogto.com/city/2008/04/green_light_green_light_red_light_camera/

1. My major point of contention was around persons needlessly trotting out the “safety” pony to justify a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario. From my readings of secondary research summaries, individuals and institutions alike seem hellbent on misrepresenting the data by asserting that, across the board, both injuries and property damage goes up as a result of these cameras. If anyone bothered to research or quote properly, they would find that while property damages and minor injuries tend to rise as a result of camera installations, MAJOR INJURIES AND FATAL CRASHES DECREASE SIGNIFICANTLY. However, the research also suggests that red-light cameras are not a panacea and need to be considered under highly specific contexts. Fair enough.

So are people just stupid and can’t read properly? I don’t think so. What I really think is that people are looking for any evidence to justify previously held opinions. Why? Well, I’ve already proved it isn’t safety we’re all shook up about so it must be… well… money. So let’s just all say it together, “this has everything to do with money, and little to do with safety”.

2. Speaking of money, I heartily agree that low-cost options should be sought like increasing yellow light times. Why not? However, is this a strategy that will always work completely in isolation? Are longer yellow lights the silver bullet? My instinct says no and wonders why they can’t be complimentary solutions. Increase yellow light times AND install red-light cameras in problem intersections that fit specific installation criteria.

3. Naturally this is still going to rile some people up. People who think cameras are a pressing threat to the very fabric of society. To be fair, the question of using more effacious means of enforcement is valid. Why not use an increase in traditional policing to get better results? Unfortunately, this too comes down to cash money ding. Policing is expensive. They have special cars, uniforms, shiny guns, badges, and wages. Even the most ticket happy cop is probably not going to recoup all the money needed to keep him on the streets. So where does that money come from? Municipal revenues aka property taxes.

So do I think it’s fair that municipalities are choosing less effective means of enforcement that are revenue-positive and shift financial burden from the tax base and onto lawbreakers? Absolutely. Maybe that’s because I drive like an old lady and am sure not to get dinged myself.

First, unfortunately, those accustomed to the standard length of yellow time will, by and large, become inadvertent “red light runners” as the result of their unfamiliarity with the abbreviated time, potentially with disastrous results.

I’m not sure about the US, but here in the UK the rules of the road are quite clearly spelled out. When you see a yellow light, you must stop if you safely can. When you see a red light, you must stop, it is not safe to continue. While it’s relatively rare, if you carry on through on yellow when you could have stopped then you can be given a ticket (statutory fine for minor infractions, whatever that is at the time). It is equivalent to rolling through a stop sign without stopping.

You seem to be implying that the US rule is “a yellow light means that there’s going to be a red light, but you can carry on so long as you get through in time, so hit the accelerator”. If true, that’s a dumb rule, since it encourages people to drive unsafely.

Given the above, the appropriate duration for yellow lights is determined by the speed limit of the road and the standard table of stopping distances (plus a small safety margin). Making it longer just wastes time, because you have to stop anyway. Making it shorter is obviously unsafe.

I”m with you. Until someone can show me a study that shows an increase in accidents, I call FUD and bullshit on the first paragraph of the original post and also #22 POSTED BY GNOODLES. It’s nice to THINK that’s what happens, but until someone shows me some real studies proving it, it’s just FUD, and I don’t mean Elmer.

“It has gotten so bad that I will not go immediately after the light turns green, because there is a very good chance that there is someone running the light.”

Whenever I stop at a yellow or red but the car next to me runs it, I lay on my horn. Pavlovian responses being what they are, I’m pretty sure it scares the hell out of that driver. And it gives me a chuckle!

“Turning left on a yellow is practically impossible, with no more than one car getting through….”

Safe drivers don’t turn left on yellow, so no big loss there.

The “I’m waiting in the intersection on a yellow, and I’ll turn when I have the red” maneuver is no longer considered a proper or safe way to make a left at a light. Go figure. Oddly enough, the correct maneuver is to wait until you have the green light!

Drivers like the ones you describe above need to grow up and get over themselves and their “me first” attitude. I hate cameras, though. What we need are more traffic cops at the high risk lights, not more machines.

http://www.motorists.org/photoenforce/home/studies/

I don’t think it’s inconceivable that being startled by a horn could cause someone to die, directly or not. What you are suggesting is that, if someone had a pre-existing condition then Nick wouldn’t have anything to do with their death, which is absurd. Of course he would. If the sound of the horn startles the individual into a panic attack (which has, in fact, happened to some people) it stands to reason that the physical honking of said horn had something to do with it.

So, our old Uncle Jeff may have had a heart condition, but how could young niece Emily be blamed for his death when all she did was jump out of the laundry hamper, screaming at the top of her lungs and wearing a freaky gorilla mask? Sure, maybe Emily had no knowledge of her uncle’s condition, but her actions led to his death. Accidents do happen, assuredly, and it’s best to do what one can to prevent them, no? The sound of a horn is startling, and not just to people who have a predisposition to seizures and spontaneous limb atrophy disorder. That said, my only beef is with his irresponsible use of the horn. That is to say, the fact that he is using his horn when no danger is imminent could be interpreted as an unlawful or illegal use of the device. Add to that the fact that he freely admits to having used the horn to alert other drivers of a COMPLETELY LEGAL activity (“running” a yellow light) and you have some additional liability concerns.

Of course, I’m not implying that he shouldn’t use the horn responsibly. I am encouraging anyone and everyone to do so. The fact that the horn exists does not demand misuse, however. And as I see it, honking at people who “run” yellows seems like a dumb idea, but it’s everyone’s right, I guess, unless there are some wacky laws in place that prohibit horn abuse. I would imagine there are, and certainly they would be as open to interpretation as some of the yellow light laws. But even if you weren’t responsible, wouldn’t it just *feel* bad to know that you’ve contributed to someone else’s death? Even if you weren’t the overly self-blaming type, I can’t imagine it makes the situation any better to say “oh well, the guy / girl died, but they had a heart condition so I had nothing to do with it.”

Granted, my illustration was somewhat extreme, and I wasn’t trying to give Nick the impression that I don’t have the utmost sympathy… I have been in several traffic accidents that weren’t my fault, but if we are to be fair, people honking their horns arbitrarily to alert other drivers of a mistake they didn’t make is every bit as zany as “running” yellow lights. If the light’s still yellow when you’ve entered the intersection, the only people getting broadsided are the ones who’ve jumped the gun on their own red lights.

I wasn’t saying that you shouldn’t want to give RED-light runners heart attacks. Mandatory IQ testing for motorists is the only way.

Radar Hunter
Photo Radar

I gave up driving in Dallas years ago. The stress was terrible.

Drivers pack intersections during congestion, causing gridlock.

I have noticed (I take public transit) that the red light cameras in Dallas and suburbs have been put up in intersections where gridlock often occurs during congestion.

Whether it is failing to yield right of way, failing to allow a lane change for a properly signalling vehicle, or failure to even notice other vehicles – Dallas has a very high percentage of aggressive, selfish drivers.

Our city council is also staffed by a band of merry criminals – our Mayor named his campaign finance treasurer to chair the public transit board – who promptly forged legal documents to avoid repaying debts, arranged mafia-style secret deals with supporters of the campaign for access to public contracts with the public transit board, and when these facts came to light, was first charged with a mere misdemeanor and then later apparently committed a murder-suicide pact with her husband. And that’s merely the most recent scandal! Most of the city council have been investigated by the FBI for making or knowing about secret sweetheart real estate development deals, one former councilman has been indicted (and I seem to recall convicted or plead out) for collusion to fix taxi fares and rig taxi licensing, and the bond money we have collected over the past decade and a half to build a park in South Dallas has been hijacked to create developments “more in the public interest”: Translation, more taxable things such as a toll road. The city CFO “discovered” millions of dollars misplaced in several accounts and the city jail has lost people long enough for them to need hospitalisation and was closed by the Feds for being incredibly filthy. And that’s just the past few years.

Dallas – without a doubt – illegally shortened the duration of the yellow lights to bilk citizens out of money; Nothing could move our bureaucracy to do something for the sake of the citizenry without lining some politician’s pockets.

You might want to RTFA before commenting. The article linked in the OP is only a summary but the link to the full article has been posted previously (see post #8). But even ignoring that, the guy you say you agree with actually posted a link to a study acknowledging that rear-end accidents increase significantly when red-light cameras are installed. As far as longer yellow times reducing those accidents, such studies do exist. The fact that you are unaware of them doesn’t matter much, especially when you are unwilling to do even a token bit of reading. In addition to the original article, and the link that Takuan posted above, you should also see http://www.motorists.org/photoenforce/home/guidelines-identifying-treating-locations-red-light-running-problem/ which specifically addresses how longer yellow lights increase safety at intersections (though unfortuantely, at the expense of revenue for the city and, often, the private company who runs the red-light camera program).