(Redlights spelled as one word to make this thread easier to find in later searches).
Hardly a day goes by that I don’t see some idjit running a redlight. And not just “Oh, it was yellow juuuust turning to red and I thought I could get through in time.” No, this is flat-out, no-apologies driving through redlights even as cars are starting to enter the intersection from the other direction. Seems a lot more common to me now than it was when I was learning to drive, or even a decade ago. It’s stoopid and crazily unsafe.
Well, here we have some intersections with cameras. At least there these eediots will be a nice and shiny letter in the mail in a couple of weeks for their trouble-saw one cruise through at least 2 seconds late the other day-FLASH. [Note-I don’t necessarily like the things…]
The worst offenders in my area are the people turning left. Apparently everyone in the left turn lane believes they have the right to get through when it comes time for their cycle through the light - even if halfway through the queue it turns red. They’ll just keep on going through. More than three seconds after the light is red, they’re still coming out of the left turn lane and going through the intersection, holding up cross traffic. A few times I’ve seen cross traffic act like they don’t notice (maybe they do, maybe they don’t) the huge slew of turning cars in front of them and start forward regardless, which is another story in carelessness (or maybe they’re trying to scare the turning folks into not doing that any more).
It pisses me off. It’s dangerous, entitled, and oblivious. New York drivers in a nutshell. They believe if they turn on their blinker they have right of way to go wherever they want (and even if they don’t).
Yeah, around here it’s “If I can remember when it was red, I’m going through it”… sometimes I’ll sneak through a yellow light just as it turns red, and two or three cars will come through behind me.
We’re also starting to get people who, if they find themselves the first car in line at a red light, with a line of oncoming traffic waiting, quickly turn left across said traffic as soon as the light turns green. (They do not have a green arrow – just a regular green light in both directions.)
The real problem comes when you get both types of idiot at the same intersection.
I think that we are causing this problem ourselves. As I child I could swear that the lights were set up so that when one side turned red, the other direction instantly turned green. Then someone got the brilliant idea of adding a delay, so that any redlight runner will have time to clear the intersection before the other direction gets the green. All that did was embolden the redlight runners. Since there was a delay, it gave them a greater window to run the light, which necessitated longer delays, which allowed the runners even more time. Now that we have cameras, all lights should be set back to no delay. Warn everybody when it is going to happen, and give tickets like Halloween candy.
Hmm, we have the opposite problem here. I have a couple of left turn lights that only turn green for a few seconds, and then it’s a two minute wait again. When the light turns green, if I am the first person in the line, I am immediately moving. I am aware there’s a whole line of people behind me who also want to go. But other people don’t pay attention to the light, so they miss the first couple of seconds - that’s two cars that can’t go. Then they turn really slowly, delaying another car. Then inevitably someone slows down as they get to the green light. Then the person behind them has left a three car stopping distance so that’s wasting more time.
I agree with the OP. These days when I stop for a light I half-expect to be rear ended by somebody who had no plans to stop. Car in adjacent lanes frequently buzz by me while I’m hitting the brakes.
Couple of months ago it happened to me. I was exiting from a freeway on my way home from work, and encountered a red light that I waited at before making my left turn into the next street. I completed my turn, and this idiot zoomed in from my right and karanged my right front fender, taking out the bumper, the turn signal and the horn. In our “discussion” he kept insisting that I hit him.
Until I pointed out that he had run a red light in order to be in that spot in the first place.
Two hours later, I got a phone call from his insurance company, accepting full liability; by the middle of the afternoon I was in a nice rental, and my car was repaired a week later.
I heartily endorse this pitting. First, my wife was almost killed by one of these turds. She wasn’t even the first person through the intersection when a moron, probably joking with his bud, hit her on the driver side front door. Luckily she was driving my Saturn, and got away with some physical therapy, though the insurance guy said it was about the worst wreck he’d ever seen where the driver pretty much walked away.
So, being a charitable guy, I’m in favor of only pulling these clowns out of their cars and beating the crap out of them, not executing them on the side of the road.
It is getting worse, as traffic gets worse. As left turn lanes back up over a block, anyone near the front doesn’t want to wait for another cycle. I don’t even mind those who accelerate on the yellow and just miss the turn to red. The two morons after him have to turn also. Ditto for going straight. At one intersection last night three cars went straight through long after the line turned.
I know red light cameras are teh eevil, but the intersection near me with a camera harely gets red light runners any more.
I’m sure if you search through the pit, you’ll find someone pitting the redlight ticket cameras. I seem to recall one recently. I generally would fall on the side of the ticket cameras, just for the safety reasons. They are a huge revenue generator for the municipality, although the companies that put them in normally have a revenue sharing arrangement with the municipality.
In many cities across the country that have put them in, lobbyists and voters have successfully had them removed. Interestingly the largest group that lobbies against the ticket cameras are the trial lawyers. Because the evidence is so incontrovertible that judges won’t dismiss the tickets and as such the trial lawyers are seeing declining fees from people attempting to fight redlight tickets. Without the cameras, the lawyers are more successful in helping clients fight the tickets.
Which, as happened in my area and why they were removed, gives the company and municipality great incentive to short the yellow lights. The public was told we’d get a normal 3 second yellow light time but after some people sued it was found the yellow lights were only 1.7 seconds.
*numbers made up because I can’t be assed to go search them out.
It’s hard enough convincing people that yellow means stop, not floor it. Assholes that keep going on red are beyond help. They are the same people who are flipping you the bird even before you lean on the horn. They already know, they just don’t care.
In the movie “Starman” Karen Allen and Beau Bridges are driving cross country. He’s the alien, so she’s doing the driving. He sees how her actions relate to the colors of the lights. Later on she’s sleeping so he takes the wheel and they nearly get creamed when he drives through a yellow light. When she yells at him he replies “I watched you most carefully. Red means stop, green means go, and yellow means go very fast!”
I wish we still had those here in Houston. When we had them, the number of wrecks at major intersections decreased drastically. But the idiots of the town voted them out and now the wreck count is going back up.
if they are causing more harm then good then yes, if they are causing more good then harm then no. The red light issues is inconsequential, a non-issue.
What I’ve noticed is that long yellow lights make the problem worse, since stopping or even slowing at one is going to get you rear ended. Or feeling like an idiot stopped at the yellow when everyone else is zooming past.
And people complain that the red light cameras don’t bring in revenue, since local drivers wise up and stop running them. I seldom see ours even flash any more. I’d rather have less revenue and fewer crashes myself.
I think red light and speed cameras are fine when they are placed in situations where there is a historical problem or some other need to enhance enforcement.
However in DC there have been and still are situations where ‘traps’ have been made for the unwary, especially commuters and tourists (the locals figured stuff out). For speeding there are a number of roads that drop suddenly in speed as you cross into the city with a speed cam nearby. On a route I drive every day there is a No Turn On Red sign and a camera; the sign is placed high enough up on the post as to escape the sight of most people when they approach the street.
But if the cameras are the REASON for the decline in revenue, because they are deterring traffic violations, then that’s evidences that it’s not about revenue.