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Cities Tampering With Traffic Lights To Generate Revenue
Techdirt is reporting that there has been a rash of reports indicating that red light cameras are being used to generate revenue rather than to promote safety. "Time and time again studies have shown that if cities really wanted to make traffic crossings safer there's a very simple way to do so: increase the length of the yellow light and make sure there's a pause before the cross traffic light turns green (this is done in some places, but not in many others). Tragically, it looks like some cities are doing the opposite! Jeff Nolan points out that six US cities have been caught decreasing the length of the yellow light below the legal limits in an effort to catch more drivers running red lights and [increase] revenue."
I guess I will have to drive faster to make those yellow lights, You know, lights timed for 35 mph are also timed for 70 mph.
Yellow lights just tell me to go faster, or I'll hit the red. So when I see one, I speed up... and I usually make it through.
Sometimes I don't make it before the red light, but thats okay - I havn't hit anyone yet!
"This is the Roscoe P Coltrane method of generating revenue through law enforcement"
Hey! Show a little respect. Roscoe has to get his revenue money somehow. He goes through 5 to 10 cop cars a day. You think after a while he'd start to notice those pre-fabricated ramps someone keeps putting all over the roads in Hazard County.
Then I will have to travel fast enough that the red shift causes the reflection of the yellow light off my windshield to appear green.
Should screw up the radar too.
I am colourblind you insensitive clod!
you mean drivers speed through as the light at the top turns grey whilst all the others have to wait at the grey light?
Then you get a ticket. :P
Jeff Bridges (Starman) would disagree!
"I watched you very carefully. Red means stop, green means go, yellow means go-very-fast."
This is absolutely false. I came to this planet after hearing an invitation from your "Voyager II" spacecraft to come here. I have learned a great deal about your culture and laws by taking the form of a girl's dead husband and driving across the country with her. I watched her very carefully, and picked up what I needed to know to survive on this planet.
From these experiences, I can tell you that the rules of traffic lights are very simple:
Red light stop, green light go, yellow light go very fast.
If they are reducing the yellow light phase to the point where it is physically impossible to stop before the light turns red, then what?
4. Profit!
That is the whole point of the article. Cities are making a profit doing this. Finally, a use for "4. Profit!" that isn't offtopic.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Mike Royko had the story about the guy from Chicago getting pulled over in another state. He hands the officer his driver's license with a $20 bill folded around it. The cop tells him he's under arrest for trying to bribe an officer. The guy looks confused and asks "What? Is it more than 20 bucks here?"
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
(cue Seinfeld) ...not that there's anything wrong with that.
And if you answered c, "show down and stop," you've probably been drinking. Please step out of the vehicle, sir.
Your brain is not a computer.
Actually, I do work in Massachusetts.
Maybe his reply wasn't meant to be in paragraphs. Maybe it was 'free verse' poetry. :)
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No. I only floor it through yellow lights. :-D
*ducking*
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I was driving up the 5 in OC area during normal morning rush-hour. The average speed for every vehicle including the big rigs was about 10 to 15mph. To my right there was a big rig in the far right lane and just as we pass an on-ramp, a car speeds down the on-ramp and tries to beat the big rig. Of course he didn't win and lost his left rear-view mirror in the process.