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Denver Must Prove Red-Light Cameras Improve Safety
An anonymous reader writes "An audit of accidents at Denver intersections where red light cameras were installed versus increasing the length of the yellow light shows little difference in the results. In a case of putting the public ahead of the corporation, the Denver auditor is recommending canceling the red light camera program unless the city can prove a public-safety benefit." I hope that private citizens offering analysis or recommendations are treated fairly.
Well, good thing there are no bad people in other countries. Its comforting to know that all evil and corruption in the world is confined to the US.
The problerm with that thinking is that none of the systems I have encountered consider you to be running a red like (and therefore take your picture) unless you enter the intersection while the light is red. Entering the intersection when the light is yellow doesn't count even if the light changes to red while you are in the intersection.
In the Phoenix area they now have a red line that is inside of both the "stop line" and the crosswalk that is the point at which you have to cross when the light is red. If you cross that line when the light is yellow, no problem. It may not be marked as clearly in other places as I haven't seen the red line like that anywhere else, but I am sure a similar point exists.
So I don't see much of a difference how long the yellow light is. If you are entering the intersection when the light is yellow you are OK. If you are entering the intersection a while after the light has turned yellow you are either going too fast for conditions or are simply not paying attention to the lights. Whether the yellow light stays up for 5 seconds or 20 seconds really doesn't matter.
Phoenix seems to be one of the top cities for people running red lights anyway. And the cameras do little good because if you have Sonora (Mexico) license plates they really can't do much to you. So you get a free pass. But Phoenix has more intersection cameras (video, not red light) than I have ever seen anywhere so they get nice clear video from five different angles (each of the four directions plus a wide-angle intersection view) for the insurance companies. Again, when the hitter has Sonoran plates it really doesn't matter much to the hitee or the hitee's insurance company. No insurance and no laws apply unless you want to sue in a Mexican court - which nobody ever does.