spark240, didn’t say there aren’t multiple factors to assess before deciding to stop; he said that signal light duration shouldn’t be one one of them.
You are not understanding me. The critical margin is that between the yellow light coming on, and the earliest point at which you could safely stop thereafter, assuming that you begin to brake immediately. If that stopping point is in, or beyond, the intersection, you keep going. Otherwise, you stop. The size of that margin will increase when the road is wet (of course road conditions should make a difference in your driving), but that has nothing to do with how long the yellow light is on.
I think the problem in your area may be not that 3.5-second yellows are too short, but that some other yellows are too long, and have been encouraging you and other people to think that there are times when you should see a yellow come on, think about it some, and then make the decision to proceed, based on how much time you think you have before it turns to red.
That’s right.
Seems to me that if you were far enough back from the intersection when it turned yellow that you couldn’t get through in 3.5 seconds, then you should have had enough room to stop safely.
You tried to “beat the yellow” and misjudged. I’d say you have nobody to blame here but yourself.
Hey, I’ve done it myself so I’m not judging you; sucks to get caught, but I’m afraid I’m not buying your “unethical” and “predatory” argument.
How do you know that he didn’t get through in 3.5 seconds? Just because he was ticketed, there’s no reason to assume he didn’t make it all the way through the intersection before the light turned red. And I don’t think it necessarily matters. I can picture scenarios where one is going slower because of the slippery conditions and doesn’t stop at a yellow when he normally would to avoid sliding out of control, and because of being further back when the light turns yellow and going slower, he might not be all the way through the intersection by the time the light turned red.
You don’t know that. Cops make bad decisions sometimes.
http://www.leftlanenews.com/six-us-cities-tamper-with-traffic-cameras-for-profit.html
http://blog.motorists.org/illinois-red-light-cameras-scam/
Red light camera - Wikipedia :
“There is also an engineering application defect in the setting of all yellow light durations all around the world which cause unavoidable red light running. Most municipalities in the world use an equation derived by the Institute of Traffic Engineers (ITE). Departments of Transportation began to apply this equation to yellow lights in 1965. In order to use this equation properly, the equation predicates that drivers know how far the safe braking distance point is from the intersection.[19] ITE’s equation demands that the driver must stop if the light turns yellow before he gets to this point. The equation demands that the driver must go if the light turns yellow after he passes this point. The problem is that no one has heard of this point let alone knows where it is. The driver has to guess. Since Departments of Transportation never reveal this location, they have created the condition of a gamble. The driver must gamble on whether to go or stop. The gamble is stacked in favor of going—to beat the light, because the equation sets the yellow light duration to half the time required to stop a car. No one can stop a car within the time the light is yellow. The logical choice is to go. Therefore drivers run the risk of running a red light over that of stopping shortly and getting rear-ended. Many times the driver accelerates to help ensure passage through the intersection while the light is still yellow. This bias to pass through the intersection to only get caught by the red light camera, in conjunction with the initial gamble, produce the statistical certainty that a large number of drivers will run the red light. Municipalities and red light camera companies bank on it. The good thing about red light cameras is that they flush out the engineering defect. In the end, this kind of defect along with all the other yellow light duration defects are all safety issues.”
Start to slow. Certainly not stop far from the intersection. However, if there was tons of traffic all moving faster then conditions would advise, then I understand why slowing too quickly is more dangerous than going through the intersection.
There are some intersections around me where the yellow is so long that if you stop when it comes on you’ll eventually get rear-ended, and where you can easily make it through the intersection all the way before the red. So, yellow duration does affect how you approach the intersection. I’ll assume a new one is short, and I’ll stop for a short yellow, but not for a long one.
Even without tons of traffic, in snowy conditions (and even in ideal ones), there are points near the intersection where you continue to go through a light that just turned yellow without slowing.
If you know you’re being tailgated and going at a speed where you feel uncomfortable slowing down because of fear of being rear-ended, then you should continue through the yellow light regardless of prior knowledge of the duration the light stays yellow. I don’t see this as an everyday situation, however.
Since you fear being rear-ended when stopping at yellow lights when they’re long in duration, shouldn’t you assume a new one is long?
If they have “increased accidents”, I’d think the better way to alleviate them would be to make the yellow longer, not shorter. Even better would be to have a brief all-red interval.
In fact, I’d think that the need for the increased police presence is indicative of them not setting the light correctly.
Of course. If the light turns yellow just as you are about to enter the intersection, it is not safe to slam on the brakes. If that was the action intended by the law, the yellow light would be rather pointless, wouldn’t it?
I read the situation in the OP as the light turned yellow when the OP was far enough away from the intersection so that there was time for it to turn red before he entered.
While I try to keep tabs on who is behind me, you don’t always have time. Not to mention that the person behind him might do the first rear-ending.
Subject to the tailgating situation, the variable of importance is the distance between me and the intersection with the yellow light. The length of the yellow light and your distance from the intersection determines your go/no go decision when the light turns yellow
In 40 years of driving I’ve never rear ended anyone, never been rear-ended, and never gotten a red light ticket, so it does work.
You realize that the whole bolded portion is just somebody’s opinion, with no cite, right?
Read it again and think about what they’re claiming: that nobody knows whether or not they can stop before reaching a given point within sight of them in front their car! Suffice it to say that driving would be much more dangerous if that were true.
“No one can stop a car within the time the light is yellow.” Now this is just silly. Look at comments like Voyager’s, which amount to an argument that it feels unsafe and unnecessary to stop promptly at a yellow because the yellow is so long. If anything, all this amounts to an argument to shorten yellow signal times so that that “gamble” is discouraged.
It would. However, you are the one that said this:
You seem to think the OP should have stopped at the yellow without knowing what his location was to the intersection. You then state that you start to stop the moment you saw the light turn red unless someone was on your tail. Neither your questioning the OP on not stopping at a yellow nor your statement that when driving in snow you used to start to stop when you saw a yellow light made sense. So I questioned you on it and asked:
“Unless someone was on your tail, you’d start to stop the moment you saw light turn yellow regardless of at what point at or near the intersection you were?”
Your response:
Start to slow. Certainly not stop far from the intersection. However, if there was tons of traffic all moving faster then conditions would advise, then I understand why slowing too quickly is more dangerous than going through the intersection.
That’s why I bothered to tell you that there are points near the intersection where you continue to go through a light that just turned yellow without slowing.
Can you quote that part for me?
You have an irrational fear of being rear-ended which is causing you to go through yellow lights even though there is time to stop. You’re breaking the law, risking getting a ticket, and putting yourself and others at risk- especially if that yellow light doesn’t last as long as you think either due to misjudgment or a change in the traffic light’s timing.
I’ve witnessed your talent debating and your grasp of logic, so I know you don’t believe this. In my 25 years of driving mostly in the densely populated state of N.J., I’ve never gone through yellow lights when there was time to stop and I’ve also never been rear-ended. I know a guy that drove drunk regularly for about as long as I’ve been alive and never got in an accident or caught, so Iguess drunk driving works too.
ManiacMan, perhaps you’re thinking about this backwards. They haven’t timed the light so that the cops can write tickets; it’s that the cops have noticed that the light is shorter and so try to discourage people from running it (by writing tickets).
rest assured that the local Police are not worried about causing more accidents if the duration of the yellow light is shortened.
If it causes more accidents then residents will petition to have the speed limit reduced. Drivers will continue to drive at the speed they feel most comfortable (the 85th percentile). That will undoubtedly be above the posted limit, so the municipality can issue more tickets.
Municipalities rarely adhere to the guidelines defined by the US DOT. if they did, speed limits would be higher and there would be fewer stop signs. Local authorities cater to the residents that elect them and the whims of the city budget committee.
But that makes no sense. If they’ve noticed that the light is too short and causing problems, why wouldn’t the solution be to lengthen the light? Why do they need to go for the suboptimal solution of making everyone compensate for the shorter light?
Also, I know plenty of places where the speed limit is rigidly enforced due to producing revenue, with the cops even admitting such. Combined with the red light cameras mentioned, I have no problem with the possibility of the OP’s assumption. But, as stated, you need more information. This is GQ, even if it doesn’t look like it.
Not in Michigan, where the OP’s intersection is located. Speed limits have to be based on the 85th percentile speed from an actual measurement, or on the number of “curb cuts” (driveways and cross roads) per mile. We’ve seen speed limits rise in some locations based on this in the last couple years since this went into effect.
Yes, it does. A yellow light that lasts for five seconds will come on when the driver is further back than one that lasts for four seconds, or three, or two. A change in the length of time the light is yellow will affect the distance the driver has to stop in when he sees the light change to yellow.
I have known many a light that was yellow for so brief a time that even on dry roads it wasn’t likely that a person going the speed limit would be able to safely stop unless they were far back from the light when it changed - and the briefness of the light also ensured that many of those within the not-safe-to-stop distance would also end up running the red light. So it was a choice between running the red light and coming to a screeching halt in the middle of the intersection at the moment the light changed for the cross traffic - I’d choose the former over the latter every time, especially given the number of people who would likely rear-end you if you tried to stop that fast.
What? Are you saying traffic lights sense when vehicles are coming and turn yellow when there are oncoming vehicles, and when the duration of the yellow light is longer it turns yellow when vehicles are further back than traffic lights with shorter duration yellows?
No, it wont. The distance a driver has to stop safely is not dependent on the duration of a yellow light. If you are traveling at a speed that you can’t safely stop when the light turns yellow, you keep going. If the light turns red while you are in the center of the intersection when driving in dry conditions, you are encountering traffic lights that I never have and should report them, you are driving too fast, you are trying to beat the light, or you need to get your brakes checked if you can’t stop in time.
The definition of running a red light is not dependent on how long the yellow light is; it’s dependent on whether or not it was safe to stop when the light turned yellow in relation to where you are and if you were traveling at a safe speed.
You misunderstand my meaning. In many cases, the police department is not aware of the traffic engineer’s reason for the light timings, and sometimes they don’t even care.
I’m suggesting that in this case, perhaps the PD is trying to fix the problem with the only tool they have - enforcement - instead of bringing it to the traffic dept’s attention. It’s just human nature. If all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.