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Speed limits actually hinder driving safety more often than they help.

Citation, please.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Speed_limit#Opposition

http://www.motorists.org/press/montana-no-speed-limit-safety-paradox

http://money.msn.com/auto-insurance/town-slams-brakes-on-traffic-tickets-carinsurance.aspx?page=2

Your original claim was "Driving below the speed limit is perfectly safe and legal."

It's perfectly safe and legal, in the absence of lawbreakers. I guess I should have put that in my original message, but when you can't assume that other road users are obeying the law, there's really no way to guarantee your safety no matter what you do.

And you can't possibly think that one study (from almost 40 years ago - 1972!) would disprove the consistent results of "federal and state studies" anyway.

But that's the most recent federal or state study available that your source's source lists. Feel free to find a more recent study.

The 85th percentile rule is a bad way to set speed limits

You can't cherry-pick a study, use its findings to support your theories, and then claim that its conclusion was entirely bogus.

If you don't like the 1981 study I used to support my statement, you're free to use the 1986 study (at the same link), which says that "80% of participants had evaluated themselves as being above the average driver."

Those are the only two studies available at the Wikipedia link. Feel free to find a study that disproves illusory superiority of driving ability. Good luck!

If it's dangerous to drive "below the speed limit +/- 10% ish", then this minimum speed limit sign must be dangerous!

Yes. It is. Your point? There are any number of dangerous things you can do legally. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's safer.

And it depends on the prevailing speed, not the speed limit. Speed limits are supposed to be set at the 85th percentile, i.e. a properly-set speed limit will be exceeded by 15% of the traffic.

That's an improper merge. We aren't talking about improper merges.

It would be equally dangerous if they were puttering along at 40 MPH on a downhill slope where the traffic coming from behind them doing 70 MPH couldn't see them until cresting the hill, which isn't a merge at all. So again, your point?

Going too slowly is dangerous.

Q. Isn't slower always safer?
A. No, federal and state studies have consistently shown that the drivers most likely to get into accidents in traffic are those traveling significantly below the average speed. According to research, those driving 10 mph slower than the prevailing speed are more likely to be involved in an accident. That means that if the average speed on an interstate is 70 mph, the person traveling at 60 mph is more likely to be involved in an accident than someone going 70 or even 80 mph.

Unfortunately, when opinion and reality conflict, most people choose their opinion over reality. http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/

LOL. The link to such a blatantly partisan website is to prove this statement correct, right?

Nope. Studies have shown that red light cameras increase crashes.

Unfortunately, when opinion and reality conflict, most people choose their opinion over reality. http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/

Cite your sources, because there are numerous studies that refute your claims.

http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/effect-yellow-timing
http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/timing-myths
http://bancams.com/get-the-facts/studies/seattle-yellow-light-times-study/
http://www.shortyellowlights.com/rlcinfo/

Also, quit spouting your "feelings" on the issue when it doesn't match up with facts.

"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"
-- Isaac Asimov

Cite your sources, because there are numerous studies that refute your claims.

http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/effect-yellow-timing
http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/timing-myths
http://bancams.com/get-the-facts/studies/seattle-yellow-light-times-study/
http://www.shortyellowlights.com/rlcinfo/

Also, quit spouting your "feelings" on the issue when it doesn't match up with facts.

"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"
-- Isaac Asimov

There's more than just suspicion. Six cities were caught shortening yellow times to make up for falling camera revenues. And there are undoubtably more out there. Not only are red-light cameras money printing machines, but the companies that install/maintain them usually get a cut, too.

If you really want to cut down on injuries and accidents, you need to put a gap between one direction turning red and crossing traffic getting the green. You should also lengthen the yellow lights, and have a way of indicating how long it will be until the light changes (I like those crosswalk signs that count down; when they hit zero, you know the light will change to yellow). Don't design the system so that it works when people act perfectly correct; design it so it works even when they're tired, distracted, or dumb.

See, red light cameras don't deter people who blow through intersections well after the light changes and cause bad accidents. They nail the people who misjudged the light by a second or two, and taking the above steps (countdown timers and the delay before green) helps prevent the accidents they cause. Smarter and/or more responsive light programming would be nice, too; people will be less tempted to try and beat the known "bad lights" if they know they won't have to sit for an unusually long time.

Some places have even been accused of shortening the yellow light to catch more people running reds. I don't know if these allegations were proven, but I do know that I've seen some ridiculously short yellows.

They most certainly have been proven.

Its actually quite well documented... for instance http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/

First of all I think it's interesting that it's the police commission proposing dropping them as most police agencies are FOR red camera lights. This one is simple economics--they're not making any money off of it. And that's the problem--it's ALL about revenue. This blog exampled 6 cities that were caught shortening the yellow light so they could catch more red light runners. The yellow light is there to warn you the light is changing so you have time to stop. Cities will put the public in more danger just to bring in higher revenue.

There is a battle going on now in Houston as the voters voted the cameras out, but the powers that be are trying to get the will of the people overturned--no doubt one big supporter is the company running the red light program. But for statistics it has been pointed out that the data they're using includes ALL accidents, regardless of cause.

I worry a lot more about people texting while driving than I do the red light runners.

http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/driver-behavior

I suppose it is debatable about the difference between increasing yellow and increasing all-red times, but I wasn't able to find a study comparing them.

5 Studies indicating that they actually increase accidents.

http://blog.motorists.org/red-light-cameras-increase-accidents-5-studies-that-prove-it/

(study after study after study have consistently demonstrated that speeding in and of itself is not dangerous

Citation Needed.

http://www.motorists.org/ma/kill.html

On top of that people have no sense of custom: I've had one batshit insane bitch cuss me out - she signaled to change lanes in front of me, so I quickly flashed my highs twice; this historically means "go ahead you're clear." She didn't change lanes but slowed down.

Is that in the DMV handbook? Cause I've never heard that, and I'm guessing I'm not alone, as I've never seen it either.

Do you need to read a government mandated manual that gives you permission to courtesy flush as well? Do you refer to your local ordinance manual when someone holds a door for you? I'm just curious if you only do what your local government tells you to do in situations regarding common courtesy.

I routinely flash to allow trucks over and I usually get a customary return flash of their trailer lights in thanks.

so because your uncle got killed in an accident both a: it must be speeding and b: we should arrest all speeders?

you might want to pull your head out of your ass just teensy bit to realize that raising speeds or unrestricting them altogether is not necessarily any less safe, and it's more about the particular drivers and their driving conditions.

If you want to be the one driving the speed limit or below in the right lane and causing accidents, traffic and road rage, be my guest.

While you are correct, you advice is unlikely to work. The PAC here however... http://www.motorists.org/speed-limits/state-speed-zoning More money and votes means a voice they will listen to.

So when they came to take away part of my liberty by installing red light cameras, I wasn't so upset. It was a trade off that would make the world better.

You've been lied to.

You should be pissed off about that, but I'm guessing not.

This is not the first time I've heard "this is for your own safety" arguments only to have them turn out as thinly veiled guises of trying to make money at your expense. Details escape me, but not too long ago, somewhere in the US, a town added red light cameras which took a snapshot of your car and sent you the fine for running a red light. In a matter of months, it was so successful that very few, if anybody, ran red lights anymore. You think they'd be happy - after all, they probably DID save lives. So why did they take them down? Because the revenue from tickets (those types anyway) was reduced to a big, fat 0

This also makes you wonder what else is being done "for our safety", when in reality it's just a way to take your money. Surely at least speeding enforcement must be exempt from this. Oh wait...

Rothbard was right when he said that governments only have destructive ways of making money (of course, he was referring to taxation at the time, but a valid point non the less)

Traffic tickets are a way of improving safety.

Yes - well, kind of.
Speed limits were instituted for safety, then lowered to save gas.

but in most civilized areas, the cops would be pleased to never have to issue another citation for a traffic violation ever again.

Where are these places?
Most areas I know of, police have quotas and bonuses for tickets issued.

it will also make them look much worse on traffic accident statistics vs. other states.

Maybe not.

When Montana threw in the towel and started enforcing speed limits, their highway fatalities doubled. Now, it's probably better to abandon the speed limits altogether than to sell speeding passes, but I'd say the guy's heart is in the right place.

-jcr

Yeah I agree running the red light is bad. But I think it is worse that the red light camera companies (i.e. RedFlex) require that the intersection yellow light duration be lowered to the minimum allowable by law when they are installed. How does that promote public safety? Not to mention the places where they violate the law and lower it even further just to get more money.

And, the cameras don't even help what I see as the main issue in the intersections, which is people failing to yield on left turns. That has nothing to do with the red light cameras.
http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/

And cities have been proven to have shortened yellow signals beyond the limits to increase violations.

And it's not just the municipalities. The standards themselves have been modified to allow shorter and shorter yellows.

link: http://blog.motorists.org/la-red-light-cameras-increase-accidents/

I need not explain how or why the 85th percentile is meaningful. It has been explained by TRAFFIC ENGINEERS. Do you fear Google? Do you fear knowledge? Do you fear thinking for yourself?

Don't spout stupidities - google for the info that you're ignorant of.

Speed has never killed anyone, in all of history. Sudden changes in inertia have killed a lot of people, but if speed killed, than we wouldn't have very many pilots who survived mach1, let alone mach 3 speeds.

http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/
"Numerous studies have shown that the 85th percentile is the safest possible level at which to set a speed limit. "

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Speed_limit
"The speed limit is commonly set at or below the '85th percentile speed' (which is the speed at which 85% of the traffic is travelling)[24] and in the USA is typically set 8 to 12 mph (13 to 19 km/h) below that speed.[25] A 1997 study carried out in Michigan, USA showed that drivers "drive at speeds that they feel are appropriate, apparently independent of the posted speed"[26] A speed limit that is considered to have been set arbitrarily slow can be difficult to enforce."

Let's do a check of your facts...

Find me a report that says increases in speed limits increase actual speeds. According to the US DOT, they did a study that found increasing the speed limit did NOT affect the average speed of traffic. http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/effects-raising-and-lowering-the-speed-limit/

Next, I would trust traffic engineers too, unfortunately, there IS probably some anonymous guy in Texas setting the speed limit.. A politician. Engineers don't set speed limits.

Except that red-light cameras do not have any effect on driver safety, but they do cause a *large* numbers of rear-end collisions. (I've seen claims that they increase the chances of a rear end collision anywhere between 200% and 800%). See this for an explanation of how camera proponents lie with statistics.

Make driving laws about safety and engineering, not revenue creation.

Join the NMA.

http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2008/04/red-light-camera-monkey-business-may-be-a-national-trend.ars
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123975737976619187.html

Springfield, Missouri had red-light cameras. They were also caught shortening yellow-light times at the intersections (original articles now gone, but here is a copy- http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit. The lights had been up and running for a few years, with no successful challengers. However, a former State Trooper took the argument that the way the tickets are prosecuted was unconstitutional. The City used an "administrative process" for the tickets, which resulted in no reporting to the driver's insurance company or the State. However, this also eliminated any chance for appeal outside of the City. The former Trooper argued that the process is criminal, not civil, and beat the city in the State supreme court. http://www.news-leader.com/article/20100303/NEWS01/3030498/Missouri-Supreme-Court-puts-brakes-on-Springfield-s-red-light-cameras

This is actually old news. The companies that install and manage the red light cameras have always encouraged the municipalities to shorten the yellow lights. In fact, I can remember seeing studies that showed that the cameras did not even pay for themselves unless the yellow lights were shortened.

The oldest article I could find from a quick search was this 2 year old article about a few cities caught in the act of shortening the lights to improve revenues.

That's how we were able to stop red light cameras from being implemented here in Virginia. These "shorter yellow light" studies, along with studies that showed that the implementation of cameras usually increased accidents at intersections, cowed the local legislators to abandon their plans, even after lobbying the state legislators to allow them to install them.

Studies show that drivers adjust to the speed at which they feel safe, regardless of posted speed. So the only way to make them go slower is to make the road inherently *less* safe.

Also, similar studies show that driving about 5-10 mph faster than posted is actually about the safest speed you can go.
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/

There's also the argument that restricting the ability to drive quickly kills, as you slow emergency response vehicles as well. http://www.bromleytransport.org.uk/Ambulance_delays.htm

All in all, one of the dumbest proposals I've ever heard. It seems that one of the easiest mistakes to make as an organization is to try to optimize for one contributing factor (speed) while ignoring the point of restricting that factor in the first place (reducing accidents).

That is a lot of cost. And even if you figure the initial cost is gone after the first year, you still have the cost of paying 1,000 people to watch cameras in order to solve 10 crimes. That is still a lot of cost. 1000 x annual wages or salary, to solve 10 crimes.

The same holds true here. Generally when shortening is discovered, it is rectified & generally costs the city a good hunk of change.

http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/

Also, many cities are removing traffic cameras now, because people are driving safer which has led to a loss of revenue for the police dept. Which I think is hilarious, personally.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-redlights_15met.ART.North.Edition1.468120d.html

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/03/cities-removing/

But I think it is relevant because that was the whole gist of the reports: the intersection cameras INCREASED the accident rate. [...] Any way you look at it, it's still an overall negative effect on public safety.

I still don't think the accident rate is important. The injury rate is important. Reports that only consider the accident rate are shortsighted.

Here is a link to 5 studies done in the US and Canada

...hand-picked by a motoring organisation. I can pick five studies on the Internet showing the opposite. This is probably a good start.

"It's not relevant, in the sense that I don't really care about someone causing minor vehicle damage rear-ending a car that stops a bit too quickly at the lights. I care about the people suffering serious injury when someone runs the lights."

But I think it is relevant because that was the whole gist of the reports: the intersection cameras INCREASED the accident rate. Not only did they not decrease red light running, but they also increased other types of accidents. Any way you look at it, it's still an overall negative effect on public safety. Here is a link to 5 studies done in the US and Canada. I have not found the story I first read from the BBC, but I assure you that is where I was first informed of this issue.

The yellow light time is a standard in the U.S., too. Those cities that were found to have reduced it were given heavy fines and other penalties.

No, I did not just "make up numbers". But when I went to look up the article I found that I had made a rather large mistake. The number is 1 crime in 1,000, not 1 in 100,000. Apologies, that was definitely a memory failure on my part.

"People monitoring cameras don't solve crimes, although they might witness them."

Not according to the BBC article I just linked to above. I was just using their wording. Complain to them.

"Monitored cameras are either a deterrent -- they move the problem elsewhere, although obviously not as well as a policeman standing in the street would -- or they are used for directing the police."

That has no bearing whatever on my comments.

There are specifications and laws for minimum yellow light duration. Cities that have gone below that can and have been forced to give back the money

Do you really believe that has completely stopped it from happeneing (sic), if so I have a bridge to sell you.

You need to work on your reading comprehension, Skippy. It's obvious from my post that I don't believe it prevents it - but that there ARE remedies available when they DO infringe the statutes.

And if they lower the yellow light below state legal minimum, they can be fined, plus refund the tickets.

Some of the places that have already been caught have removed the red-light cameras because they're no longer profitable (they can't "catch" enough people if the yellow light is on for at least the legal minimum).

There are specifications and laws for minimum yellow light duration. Cities that have gone below that can and have been forced to give back the money.

It depends on the situation, but a lot of the laws out there do demonstrably make you less safe. Careful note: this does not include seat belt laws or helmet laws on motorcycles. Opponents of these often cite examples of these safety measures causing more harm, but statistically speaking, they vastly improve safety. Anecdotes are not data.

What is data is that child seats are crap. While seat belts clearly won't work for very young children, child seats make no difference for kids much over 2 years old. NHTSA's data was to compare child seats against using nothing at all . They are also only tested in head-on collisions, and fail hard in side collisions. They're also very hard to setup correctly, and any safety benefits they might have disappear when they're not.

The data also supports that going over the speed limit isn't as dangerous as many make it out to be. You should drive at whatever speed everyone else is driving, no matter what the speed limit is.

Most states have laws specifying that speed limits should be put at the 85% speed (the speed that 85% of the people are driving), but I think we can all list counterexamples of that in our respective areas, especially in small towns that like their speeding ticket revenue. Further, there are many circumstances where even very fast speed is safe. On an empty 3-lane highway with a car in good condition (especially tires), there's not much that can go wrong even at 150mph. Of course, doing the same at rush hour is very dangerous.

If you're driving through snow, you drive wherever the snow has been worn down by other drivers the most. If that happens to be straddling two lanes (assuming you can even see the line, which you probably can't), then so be it. Your tires will have their greatest traction there, so that's where you should be.

The most dangerous driver is the one that feels safe. Cell phones aren't so much a problem in themselves as the fact that the driver felt comfortable enough to use a cell phone. Safe drivers are paranoid. Sure, that guy might have his turn signal on, but is he really going to turn?

A common statement made by female SUV buyers is that it makes them feel safer. That's exactly what we don't want.

Because, all things being equal in a fatal accident, they actually kill you 1/3 of the time?

http://www.motorists.org/seatbelts/home/for-your-own-good/

How many data points are you working on? How many cops do you personally know?

In terms of judging the educational qualifications or training requirements for police officers, how many cops I know personally is irrelevant.

A national commission recommended back in 1973 that a bachelor's degree be made a minimum requirement for entry-level police officers. But few police forces have done so; most require only a high school diploma, or perhaps two years of college. Some departments disqualify people for being overly intelligent. Those are simply facts, and they do not indicate a profession seeking to attract the best and brightest intellects.

But in terms of personal experience with cops, let's see. Outside of traffic stops, there's my brother's ex-girlfriend's father, who -- the first and only time I met him -- bragged about how he administered some "street justice" to a purse snatcher who tried to run.

There was the karate instructor who was a cop, who I met at a martial arts get-together, and who after a few beers told us a story about how police really do have the hypocritical (he didn't call it that, of course) "courtesy" of letting their fellow cops break speed limits. No wonder then that some Maryland cops feel that they can ignore the speed cameras they use on us.

Then there's the group of Baltimore City's finest who showed up while I was trying to trying to keep a street disturbance from breaking out into a major fight -- and who promptly grabbed someone who wasn't involved and slammed him up against the wall, and assaulted another guy who protested.

Then there's the very intelligent, dedicated, peace-loving fellow I know who joined the Baltimore City Police with great hope because he wanted to do something about the city's violence problem. Last time I talked to him, his eyes were half-dead, his idealism almost gone, and I have to hope he quits before the bastards grind him down and turn him into yet another bad cop.

Because according to most studies that line represents the point at which the impairment begins to cause accidents. And I didn't advocate for them to sit outside the bar and randomly breath test people -- I advocated for them to be on patrol looking for people who are driving poorly.

The NMA says it more eloquently than I can. Try to open your closed mind and read their position paper on the issue. Then maybe we can have a rational discussion about the issue.

These three are irrelevant, because a picture of the driver is included with the ticket in the mail. If you don't look like the picture, then it's pretty easy to contest it.

I don't know about where you live, but this is not the case in Atlanta. My beloved Volvo recently died so my stepfather was nice enough to loan me his car for a week while I shopped around. I apparently ran* a red light in his car, and the ticket ended up going to him. The picture was only of the car, from the rear, without any way to see who was driving it. He had to get a notarized letter saying he was not the driver, and go through a bunch of idiotic paperwork, to get the ticket transferred to me. Of course, we're friendly, reasonable sorts, so this was not an issue, but what if I turned around and claimed that no, I was not the driver either? The camera itself has no way of determining who is telling the truth, but the state sure as hell isn't going to just drop the matter.

Furthermore, the issue of "you have no accuser to face in court" is absolutely correct. Many judges agree. You can't just say "Well, it's on camera," because all I see in the picture is the back of a car, which may or may not be driven by me, and in some of these pictures, depending on camera placement, you can't even tell where the picture was taken.

Even if my face is clearly identifiable in the picture, it's still not taking into account mitigating circumstances which a cop might notice but the camera won't. Maybe I saw some lunatic approaching from the rear at 50mph and wasn't slowing down, and decided that getting out of his way would be a really great idea. Or, less dramatically, maybe it's four in the morning, with visibility for miles and nobody around, and I've been stuck at the same red light for six minutes for no reason. I've done that, got pulled over, and the cop let me go because he realised it was absurd. I've seen judges in traffic court let infractions like that slide with similar excuses. A camera would not have been so forgiving.

4. Because rear-end collisions increase at intersections with red-light cameras?

Your requested citation, sir. It seems rather obvious anyway -- if you instill into people the fear that they are going to get ticketed, they're going to be a lot more stompy on that brake pedal if there is even the slightest chance they won't clear the intersection. And like it or not, people follow too closely, and do not expect the guy in front of them to suddenly hit the anchors. Maybe the accident will be the fault of the guy in back, but that doesn't chance the fact that an accident occured. The cameras and laws just ignore the mechanical realities of the situation.

In general drivers are not suicidal and will not deliberately run red lights. If there's a problem at a certain intersection with many drivers blowing through the light at the last second, maybe the answer is to adjust the damn timing, not try to profit from it.

* I had pulled out into the intersection to make a left turn, the light changed, so I went. Apparently the state would rather I just sit there in the intersection like a jackass. :P

Except not. The longer yellow light existed because it's safer. You only have so much reaction time when traveling at a given speed, and jamming on your brakes is not always the best decision, especially when your vehicle may be extra heavy or other people may be following you closely. What happened in many of those cases was that the yellow light time was dropped to way below safe levels.

1. Because tickets are sent to the wrong people?
2. Because tickets are assessed to the owner (not the driver) of the car?
3. Because you have no accuser to confront in court?

These three are irrelevant, because a picture of the driver is included with the ticket in the mail. If you don't look like the picture, then it's pretty easy to contest it.

In MD at least, the ticket does go to the car owner, and not the driver. The red light camera ticket I saw had only a picture of the rear of the car, and you could in no way identify the driver.

4. Because rear-end collisions increase at intersections with red-light cameras?
Citation needed.

this page has 5 studies that conclude that accidents increase
http://www.motorists.org/blog/red-light-cameras-increase-accidents-5-studies-that-prove-it/

No you didn't; you dug your head into the sand because you don't want to believe otherwise. The last one should be of special intrest to you, because you believe speed limits are for saftey. From that link:

"Lowering speed limits more than 5 mi/h (8 km/h) below the 85th percentile speed of traffic did not reduce accidents."

and

"Based on the free-flow speed data collected for a 24-h period at the experimental and comparison sites in 22 States, posted speed limits were set, on the average, at the 45th percentile speed or below the average speed of traffic"

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_19990425/ai_n11718981/
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/higher-65-mph-save-lives/
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/did-raising-freeway-speed-limits-affect-traffic-safety/
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/new-york-dot-study/
http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html

But please, keep telling yourself speed limits are all about safety, when studies show the opposite.

No you didn't; you dug your head into the sand because you don't want to believe otherwise. The last one should be of special intrest to you, because you believe speed limits are for saftey. From that link:

"Lowering speed limits more than 5 mi/h (8 km/h) below the 85th percentile speed of traffic did not reduce accidents."

and

"Based on the free-flow speed data collected for a 24-h period at the experimental and comparison sites in 22 States, posted speed limits were set, on the average, at the 45th percentile speed or below the average speed of traffic"

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_19990425/ai_n11718981/
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/higher-65-mph-save-lives/
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/did-raising-freeway-speed-limits-affect-traffic-safety/
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/new-york-dot-study/
http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html

But please, keep telling yourself speed limits are all about safety, when studies show the opposite.

No you didn't; you dug your head into the sand because you don't want to believe otherwise. The last one should be of special intrest to you, because you believe speed limits are for saftey. From that link:

"Lowering speed limits more than 5 mi/h (8 km/h) below the 85th percentile speed of traffic did not reduce accidents."

and

"Based on the free-flow speed data collected for a 24-h period at the experimental and comparison sites in 22 States, posted speed limits were set, on the average, at the 45th percentile speed or below the average speed of traffic"

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_19990425/ai_n11718981/
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/higher-65-mph-save-lives/
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/did-raising-freeway-speed-limits-affect-traffic-safety/
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/new-york-dot-study/
http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html

But please, keep telling yourself speed limits are all about safety, when studies show the opposite.

Higher speed limits on the interstate can decrease accidents, but only if traffic already moves faster than the speed limits. It's not high speeds that are necessarily the problem, but rather variation in speeds. That should be the argument against these things, not that higher speeds save lives. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2621023 http://www.science.org.au/nova/058/058print.htm http://www.consumersunion.org/other/speedlimits/speed031500a2.htm http://www.roadsafety.org.uk/information/publish/article_127.shtml http://sense.bc.ca/disc/disc-09.htm http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/

[citation needed]

Ah, what idiots too stupid to use Google use to get others to do their work for them, and for a bonus they get to imply that it's false because they don't believe in it. Oh, and spend a few years reading through everything on http://www.motorists.org/ and linked websites from there.

Let's forget for a moment the real reason this is a good idea - which is that cities with red light cameras (and the contractors which they hired to install them, who also get a cut of the profits) have repeatedly been shown to be reducing the yellow warning signal time - sometimes even less than the legally required minimum duration - in order to snap tickets of cars whose velocity makes it unsafe or impossible to avoid entering the intersection between the moment when the light turned yellow and when it turned red.

Red light cameras have been proven to increase the number of accidents at an intersection rather than reducing them; drivers try to stop more quickly than is necessarily safe if they know there is a camera. Here is a link to five studies which demonstrate an increased accident rate for intersections which received red light cameras.

So even ignoring that your post ignores the real reasons this makes a lot of sense, there are still several problems with your statements that suggest the physical presence of your car in the intersection is always a rightful traffic violation:

1) Sometimes the intersection becomes obstructed only after you have entered it (a pedestrian walks against the signal, an opposing driver turns in front of you, etc)

2) Sometimes the obstruction in the intersection isn't visible until you have either already entered the intersection or it's too late to avoid entering the intersection due to velocity - such as debris in the road.

3) Many roads with traffic lights have speed limits which make observing the principle of avoiding entry until the intersection is completely clear infeasible. When you're traveling at 65 mph, coming up on a green light, even if you are traveling a safe distance from the car in front of you (you have time to come to a complete stop should they slam on their brakes), you are committed to entering that intersection well before the car in front of you has left it, especially if the crossing road is multiple lanes (there is one such intersection near me where the crossing road is 6 lanes; normal traffic patterns have between 2 and 3 cars inside the intersection during their green at any given point in time).

4) Some intersections in my area are blind intersections - enough so that they place "[Red/Green] Light Ahead" signs in advance - which precede the signal in the intersection with enough lead time that when traveling at a normal speed if it turns to "Red Light Ahead" as you pass the sign, the signal will start to turn red just as you approach the intersection. Obviously the township doesn't believe you have enough capacity to evaluate the intersection well enough to make an entry decision without being given advance notice of the light conditions - how could you then hope to make an evaluation of whether the intersection will be clear in time to avoid entering it?

I'm sure I could dream up more scenarios. A police officer standing next to your window is (presumably) going to listen to reason.