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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."
Would these sneaky moves be grounds to contest the validity of all of the tickets given by traffic cameras in these cities?
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
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.
Quite simply, if they were there for safety, cities would put warning signs up at intersections that have cameras, people would slow down, less people would run lights, and less accidents would occur. I have never seen a warning sign at such an intersection, so their financial motives are pretty clear.
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After jumping through two blogs (neither of which are the actual story), you'll come to Motorists.org -- the National Motorists Association -- and find the story, dated March 26, 2008 (3 weeks ago). Reading the story, you'll see they cite six different local newspaper articles, some dating back more than a year ago:
http://www.motorists.org/blog/red-light-cameras/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/
So while indeed this is interesting, it is not particularly "new" nor "news." Cities have been doing this for over a decade, and they occasionally get caught, but more often than not, they do not. They will continue to push for the cameras since they generate virtually "free" revenue (free in the sense of little manpower and little initial investment cost).
Here in the UK we've had cameras of some sort looking over traffic for years. Initially they were speed cameras; today there are also red light cameras.
The entire system is set up to make money and it's as clear as day. When a speed camera is placed at the bottom of a steep hill or in the middle of a 2-mile straight, clear stretch of road (with a tree hiding it), it's pretty unrealistic to claim they're purely for safety reasons
A link to the original article. Techdirt links to a Leftlanenews site that in turn links to the original article.
.5 miles beforehand warning of the speed camera.
The cities involved are Union City, CA, Dallas and Lubbock, TX, Nashville and Chattanooga, TN, Springfield, MO.
As others have pointed out, if the government were truly interested in safety and not revenue, they would put up signs well ahead of the intersections. They would do the same with speed cameras - find where people are driving to fast for conditions (with accident data to back it up), put up a speed camera and then put up a sign
Of course, if safety were actually a reasonable cause for speeding, we would have speed limits actually based around the 85th percentile and other statistically proven safe policies.
Instead we have the police using tickets as a revenue source.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
In all the cities near me, there are yellow diamond signs with a picture of an old brownie camera in black in the middle on all approaches to intersections with cameras.
The biggest solution to decreasing accidents at intersections is actually not to increase the amber light and provide more delay before the cross street's green -- the biggest solution is to decrease the number of light cycles per day. The fewer cycles, the fewer accidents per day, even if the same number of accidents occur per cycle.
The trick is to measure the volume of through traffic on both streets per hour on weekdays and weekends and adjust the light timings accordingly, finding the "sweet spot" between causing congestion due to long waits and causing accidents due to short waits.
The long amber and green light delays are only an aid that can help tweak the system once these other factors are accounted for.
Of course, in many cities, the amber light is referred to by drivers as the "go faster" light -- having a long amber actually promotes speeding through intersections in such cities, and results in more pedestrian injuries and deaths.
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!
Dallas recently installed red-light cameras. I'll testify that red-light runners were a major problem here, but I didn't support the cameras because of the potential for abuse. There was concern at City Hall, too, especially from the city's most with-it councilperson, Angela Hunt.
To the surprise of just about everyone, the cameras worked! People actually started slowing down in time to stop if the light turned yellow. The city became safer.
But there was an inevitable downside... the cameras' revenue no longer supported their operating cost.
Once again, the unexpected happened. Dallas did NOT tweak yellow light timing to generate more tickets. Instead, they turned off some of the cameras. Apparently, the contract with the third-party camera operator has a clause that reduces the monthly charge from $3,800 per camera to "a fraction" of that cost (blame the Morning News for failing to tell whether that fraction is 1/10 or 9/10). So they're turning some of them off, noting that "most motorists won't realize this and behave as if the cameras are operational."
Which is what we wanted all along.
The city of Dallas is mired in several messes of its own making, resulting in high-profile FBI probes and even a suicide pact between two of its best-known (and most-troubled) behind-the-scenes power brokers. But in this case, the city comes shining through. And the Rangers won a double-header last night, too. Wonders never cease.
More info available from the Dallas Morning News article.
More info NOT available from "theNewspaper.com", a self-described "journal of the politics of driving" that never hesitates to pass on a story of red light camera *abuse*. I sent a link to the DMN story, but it never showed up. Agenda much?
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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?
...the timing of the Yellow and All-Red intervals are pretty straightforward. The Yellow should be 3-6 seconds long, and is based upon the approach speeds (the higher the speed, the longer the Yellow). The purpose of the Yellow is warn traffic of an impending change in Right-of-Way assignment. On a typical urban roadway with speeds of 30 mph, the Yellow should be 3 seconds long.
The All-Red interval should also be 3-6 seconds long, and should be based upon the geometry and size of the intersection, as well as the approach speeds. The purpose of the All-Red interval is to ensure that the intersection is clear of crossing traffic prior to assigning the Right-of-Way to a side street or pedestrian crossing. To determine the appropriate length of an All-Red interval, you need measure the distance from the stop line to the far side of the intersection (typically past the far crosswalk) and determine the approach speed. 30 m.p.h. = 44 ft/sec, so if the distance from the stop line to the far crosswalk is 88 feet, the appropriate All-Red interval would be 2 seconds. To be conservative, you can also add the length of a typical vehicle (~25 ft.) into the equation.
With that knowledge in hand, you may be able to fight a red light-running ticket if you believe the timing provided for you was too short. Those are the general guidelines across the US. Individual states, counties, and cities may have different criteria, though.
The city of Baltimore has been under constant scrutiny for red light camera policies that appear to be unsafe and/or in financial conflict with the public interest. In the report mentioned here, Administrative Judge Keith "One T" Mathews wrote the following summary:
The one thing that red light cameras have always consistently accomplished, however, is revenue generation on a large scale.
No, I have not RTFA. Anything that begins with the standard "they must want the revenue" rationalization is self-deluding crap.
I used to work in Santa Clara, CA, on a street where the drivers where demonstrably crazy. It had 2 lanes plus a center left turn lane. The 35 MPH posted limit was eminently reasonable. Yet people routinely drove much faster, even using the center lane as a passing lane. Worst of all, it was a short street, so that speeding cut a few seconds at most off your commute.
One day, I narrowly escaped a headon collision with a particularly stupid speeder-weaver. I pried my fingers off the steering wheel, went to my office, and wrote a letter to the local police chief detailing conditions on this road, and suggesting a few minor improvements in enforcement.
I didn't get a few minor improvements — I got a major crackdown. I guess that letter was even scarier than I realized. A lot of my co-workers got ticketed. Did any of them admit to being bad drivers. No of course not. They were all perfect drivers. They all agreed that Santa Clara must need the extra revenue.
Face it, bozos. None of you is as good a driver as you think you are. If you think yellow lights are two short, don't fucking race them.
According to this site the legal yellow light times in the state of California are:
Posted Speed or Prima Facie Speed Minimum Yellow Interval
MPH KPH Yellow SECONDS
25 40 3.0
30 48 3.2
35 56 3.6
40 64 3.9
45 72 4.3
50 80 4.7
55 89 5.0
60 97 5.4
65 105 5.8
Sorry, the lameness filter prevents this from being easily read.
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For anyone that's interested, the video referred to above is titled "A Meditation On The Speed Limit."
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Beat it at what? Being right? Sure. Changing it? I've seen precious little in these parts to suggest our lawmakers are even remotely swayed by things like "facts" or "common fucking sense".
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
There is no reason in the world why a hardware provider should get any percentage of the revenue from traffic cameras. Traffic fines should never go to private companies, and they should never benefit any organization related to handing out traffic tickets, otherwise there is just too much potential for abuse.