Is it justifible for a city to set up a traffic light to change the time intervals for when the various lights change? It seems that a traffic light by me takes about 4 seconds to turn red after it turns yellow most of the time, but in the afternoon the light changes from red to yellow in about 3.5 seconds. Everytime I go by that light in the afternoon the police car is pulling over yet another driver at that light.
In a very unscientific audit I have been comparing this fast light to other lights in the immediate vicinity and neighboring communities and these other lights turn red with about a 5 second pause from once it turns yellow! 5 seconds! I was using a stopwatch btw.
It would seem to me that doing this is just a cheap way to cash in on a ton of money from commuters whose reaction times are somewhat slower than most. The posted speed limit is 35mph and if you are traveling along and fail to have superior reaction times, or if the road is slippery due to inclimate weather you end up getting a ticket and losing $150 dollars. There is a very small margin for error here I think.
Is this legal for the police to do this, or is it predatory? Can anything be done at all to stop this kind of thing? It just seems so unethical to me…its just a blatant money grab IMHO. I already paid the ticket (impeding traffic which has no points) because I feared that since it IS such a money maker for the city that I would be up against “powerful” people and get harassed/punished for even thinking about messing with their honey-pot.
Is the speed limit the same at light 1 as it is at light 2?
Does the traffic (tend to) pick up at light 1 at the same time it goes from 4.0 seconds to 3.5 seconds?
I will try to answer your 2nd question as best I can.
The road related to this light runs north-south. This road is a main thorofare and has lots of traffic all the time but especially so during rush-hours. The traffic that comprises the roads that run perpendicular to this road is mostly sid-streets, and the traffic on those roads is nothing big at all.
Perhaps they justify dialing the speed of the interval of that light faster during rush-hours to keep the flow of traffic moving, and the bonus is the extra money they net from people who can’t stop fast enough.
If I were more naive, I would suggest that they couldn’t possibly be doing this on purpose, because “encouraging” people to run red lights would result not only in greater revenue from traffic tickets, but also in greater danger of serious accidents.
It seems too coincidental and too lucrative to not be doing this on purpose. This light in question is on the very outskirts of my city. In fact if you use that link I posted you can head north maybe a half mile or less and you are in a different community (you can actually see the sign). To me that means that my city officials/police are limiting the amount of pain that it’s community members might feel since alot of the traffic on that road is from many neighboring communities, so the chances of a resident of my city getting popped is “less” than average. Put something like this doctored-up light in the middle of Main street in ANY city and the residents would howl for blood.
Almost certainly the case. All big-city (metro) traffic these days is computer monitored, with complex algorithms used to maximize flow. The timing of lights will change throughout the day to accommodate the changes in traffic.
People may not realize this and so not change their habits. Or it may be that the press of traffic changes their behaviors.
Either way, traffic engineering is not something done at the whims of a guy sitting in an office and saying that the city needs more revenue. Any change in any light ripples out and affects the entire system. There are state and national standards that need to be met. Every tiny increment is planned out well in advance.
That is the flaw in the system as well. The world changes faster than cities can afford to do monitoring. I assume we’ve all seen those counters strung across lanes for cars to pass over. Humans are sent out to do counts as well at intersections and lights. But those are expensive and one new building can throw off all those results. It’s become much easier to make system-wide changes using modern computers, but the system still tends to lag behind reality. A few expressways may have real-time interaction but no complete metro area can afford that. Therefore the lighting system can never be perfect.
Deliberate flaws for revenue? I doubt it. I wouldn’t say it could never happen - people are stupid everywhere. But I really doubt it.
Are you aware of anyone actually getting a ticket for overrunning the yellow light? I agree that some jurisdictions in U.S.A. manipulate some traffic regulations just to get more infraction revenue, but, as others say, your scenario seems quite unlikely.
Back when red light cameras were getting popular, the local news examined the yellow light timing at intersections where cameras were being or had been installed. They stated that the standard for yellow light duration was supposed to be one-tenth of a second for every MPH of the speed limit in order to ensure adequate stopping distance. So, if the limit is 40 MPH, the yellow light should last 4 seconds, 3.5 seconds for 35 MPH, and so on.
As I recall, at 12 intersections, only 4 had yellow lights that met the proper timing.
The OP needs to call his local newspaper and/or TV station and get them to raise a stink about it. The local police dept. would undoubtedly stop taking advantage of said light if the issue was given a lot of negative publicity.
Traffic lights are set to different timing based on conditions. Conditions are different when you come by later in the day. Maybe they have had accidents at that time. Besides, people are supposed to stop on the yellow, not proceed through unless they can’t stop. I feel your pain because I see lots of revenue tickets being written in my area. It all comes down to the judgment of the officer. In my opinion, I have seen officers write what I consider bogus tickets just to fill quotas or generate funds. We have one school zone where the officer sits in a backyard and pops out to stop the next car by regardless of speed. He is not using radar, just stopping cars. Fortunately, I have been in back and was not stopped, but I could tell the speed was the same 20MPH as mine in a 25MPH zone. I now avoid the area to save my record.
This is always a puzzler for me, and I have heard it many times, with some folks saying that certain states have a law that says exactly this (Virginia comes to mind).
The reason for my puzzlement: Why bother have a yellow light at all? What purpose does it serve?
If Yellow means the same as Red (i.e. “Don’t go through the intersection”), then why don’t they simply have red and green lights?
ETA: One reason could be to provide a time when all traffic is stopped (yellow on one side, red the other), but most lights, in New Jersey at least, already have a built in delay where the intersection is kept all red for a couple of seconds. So the yellow isn’t necessary if it means “stop”
Yellow means “clear the intersection”. If your car has entered the intersection, proceed through. If you’ve not entered, stop.
I’ll repeat what Exapno and others have said; traffic signal timings are part of traffic control design. Engineers use a lot of variables to determine the optimum signal timings, and often calculate them by using complex computer modeling. Differing conditions warrant different timings, and it’s not unusual at all for timings to be different throughout the day, or during peak retail seasons (like Christmas).
It has always been my understanding that a yellow light is a warning to driver that the light is seconds away from changing to red so you had better be prepared to stop.
It certainly doesn’t mean “just keep on driving” or “speed up to beat the light.”
There’s really no such thing as running a yellow light. But when the light is red, you are NOT supposed to be moving.
So a traffic light is meant to keep the flow of traffic moving, but nevermind the delay that the other commuters experienced when I was actually pulled over. Not to mention all of the other commuters who increased other commuters delays when they rubbernecked and gawked while hitting their brakes to check out those pretty blue and red flashing lights.
When I got popped it was snowing and the road was slippery. I don’t know what the friction coefficient was reduced to, but I was slipping and sliding as I made my initial way to the road that I was pulled over on and thought I had better drive carefully. So IMO I couldn’t have stopped safely because of the conditions…
I don’t think that some person is sitting in a room somewhere adjusting a timer to decrease the interval from yellow-to-red. But when other lights that are on the same road all have larger intervals I can only conclude that it is a scam of sorts.
Lets say for example I am new to an area and I am traveling down a road that I haven’t before. And all the traffic lights are turning yellow to read in about 5 seconds. All of the sudden for some unknown reason a light ahead of me turns yellow-to-red in 3.5 seconds I would say that it is predatory and illegal too. Its like a high tech way to get pick-pocketed.
Perhaps they do all the calculations and models and just discard the results
The light outside my neighborhood is timed during the day but in the evenings the won’t trigger unless someone is at the light. Perhaps a more mundane example of light behavior changing based on calculated usage.
In NY there is such a thing and you could get cited for doing so. Yellow evidently means red if you have the time stop, or so I heard from driver’s ed. many moons ago. This is opposed to NJ where you could get cited for stopping at a yellow for interfering with the flow of traffic :rolleyes::mad:
:rolleyes::mad: