In most states there is no problem for a police officer to sit at an intersection and note the plates running a red light and file complaints against all of them. In most (but not as many) states it’s also perfectly acceptable for you as a private citizen to sit at a traffic light, jot down the plates of people who run red lights and file a complaint against them (but the local police will probably roll their eyes when you tell them you’d like to make 20 complaints out for red light violations).
As I stated in my earlier post, statistics show that rear-end collisions are 20% more costly to repair. As to Voyager’s observation that people are more cautious because they have less expectation that you’ll go through a yellow, that’s also been disproven.
In a broad sense, I can see why discouraging people from running red lights is a good idea. But this method is not reducing accidents. It could, but is being leveraged to emphasize revenue over safety. In addition to the cameras, they must increase yellow intervals, delay the change-over to green for the perpendicular traffic and lower the penalty in order for motorists to more clearly determine whether they’d rather pay the fine or risk being rear-ended.
It reminds me of the TSA’s approach to national security. You could take decisive action to root out the .001 percent that are a clear danger, or put on a song and dance that inconveniences everyone and does not address the root problem.
I agree with some of your argument here, but the bolded part is stupid.
If the penalty is low enough for people to make such decisions, then they might also make the determination that it’s OK to risk running the yellow/red. I’ve been driving for 25 years, on three continents, on both sides of the road, in all conditions, and i’ve never once run a red light or been rear-ended. Even when i lived in Baltimore, where some people constantly complained that the yellow interval was not long enough, i never had trouble stopping.
It’s actually not that hard to avoid running a red light. The way some people talk about it, you’d think they were being asked to perform open-heart surgery while walking a tightrope.
I admit I’m a bit biased on this subject because a red light runner almost killed my wife. She was saved only by the fine construction of my Saturn, which she was driving. It got totaled, but that was minor.
Here is a study by the California state auditor on red light cameras - big pdf.
Page 71 (76 of the pdf) has a table for accidents in my town. Accidents at intersections with red light cameras fell 11% after they were installed, while accidents at intersections without red light cameras rose 7%. However this does not consider the severity of the accident. I’d gladly take more rear enders to save accidents involving major injuries or death. YMMV.
AFAIK, there is a big difference between West Coast and East Coast. Unless things have changed vastly over the years (I was in Florida for a few weeks way back in 1978): Yellow lights in the eastern part of the country are way shorter than out west. I even read on some how-things-work sort of web site, an explanation of why they do that.
Driving in Florida was a very nervous experience because of the miniscule yellow lights.
The length of yellow lights could very well affect the accident statistics with vs without robo-cop cameras.
You might be right; i don’t know.
But i lived in Baltimore for eight years, and in addition to driving there, i drove in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., as well taking taking longer trips through the smaller towns of New England, upstate New York, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Managed to do all that without ever running a red light, and it never seemed to me that the lights were timed to have especially short yellows.
I’ve managed the same thing over the past four years in California.
Houston used to have red light cameras, and while they were in effect, the collision rate at dangerous intersections went down. But Houston drivers, in their collective idiocy, voted to remove them. Because, ya know, it’s far more important to be able to run the red light and save a whole whoppin’ 30 seconds on the trip.
At the risk of propelling this thread into GD territory, I seriously doubt your claim that you’ve never run a red light, at least to the satisfaction of a red light camera. The phrase “running a red light” elicits images of blasting through an intersection at full-speed in the middle of a cycle and T-boning some hapless person on the cross street, but (fortunately) that very rarely happens. In reality, most of the tickets handed out by the cameras are either people who just barely misjudged the length of the yellow, or didn’t quite come to a complete stop when turning right.
Yes, they’re still moving violations, but they’re not likely to cause an accident nor would a flesh-and-blood policeman be likely to write you anything more than a warning. If you do a lot of driving in a place that’s got a lot of these cameras, the chances of you eventually getting a ticket are pretty close to 100%.
They must be allowed to weigh the risks and decide whether to run the light or not. There are tens of thousands of red light rear-end accidents across three continents every year. Cameras or no. Just because you’ve never been involved doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. maybe you maintain your brakes better. Maybe you don’t have a three year old hitting their sister.
It is sometimes more prudent to run the light if it is still yellow. If the car ahead of you jets off under the yellow and the massive SUV behind you takes that as his clue that both of you are going to gun it, the chances for being hit are higher than going through the yellow. My car weighs 2300 pounds. I can stop from 40 mph in 35 feet. The jacked-up Expedition behind can’t do that on it’s best day. It weighs about 5300 pounds. If the light is yellow, I’m going for it. If the front of my car passes under that light, no matter if it’s red or yellow, the truck behind me expects that at the very least, his stopping zone is the white line plus five feet.
That statement is stupid.
This is not an excuse. If you can’t pay attention to the road, you shouldn’t be driving.
Yeah, that’s what local protocols and system design are all about.
Here our camera system is designed for community surveillance of public areas. The system uses several of the same types of cameras that could be used in a traffic enforcement setup.
But here is where it gets weird… the system is run by the 9-1-1 center and the police do not have access to all of the system directly. They have to make a written application for recordings or ANPR data. And the police here do not have direct access to the vehicle licensing database.
Suppose the police are investigating a hit-and-run. They apply for and get a video of a car blowing through an intersection. Could potentially get a plate number from an ANPR camera, but then need to run that back through the 9-1-1 center to get owner’s details. However the system is not designed with street level cameras so identifying the driver could be difficult.
So you just let your 3 year old hit his sister? Just ignore her cries of pain? To do otherwise involves taking attention off the road.
Yes.
A 3- year-old is unlikely to hurt his sister as badly as the truck that t- bones me when I run the light. Even if I’m not approaching an intersection, I don’t turn to referee the kids while driving. That’s where the phrase “Don’t make me stop this car” comes into play.
No, actually.
What i think you should do is turn around in your seat and try to separate them, making sure you take at least one hand off the wheel, all the while trying to see the road and the other traffic out of the corner of your eye. :rolleyes: