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Florida DOT Cuts Yellow Light Delay Ignoring Federal Guidelines, Citations Soar

Posted by Unknown on from the safety-is-our-last-concern dept.

New submitter zlives writes in with news that Florida's DOT changed some language in their yellow light timing regulations, leading to a decrease in the yellow delay. Especially at lights with red light cameras. "From the article: 'Red light cameras generated more than $100 million in revenue last year in approximately 70 Florida communities, with 52.5 percent of the revenue going to the state. The rest is divided by cities, counties, and the camera companies. In 2013, the cameras are on pace to generate $120 million.' I wonder what the camera company cut is?" At least one area has promised to undo the reduction now that they have been caught.

6 of 507 comments (clear)

  1. Citations? They need to be sued heavily by erroneus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This has been proven to put the public at risk of property damage, of injury and of loss of life.

    The people who made this decision need to be removed from office at the very least and potentially criminally prosecuted for endangerment [of a child].

  2. Short yellow lights are a safety hazard by gstrickler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There must be sufficient time for a fully loaded semi-trailer to react to the change, and safely come to a stop, or proceed through the intersection, from at least 5mph under to 5mph over the posted speed limit, in wet road conditions, or it's not safe. These cities are risking your safety to raise more money from bogus fines.

    --
    make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
    1. Re:Short yellow lights are a safety hazard by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think it's just Florida that's abusing traffic citations for profit. I visited Santa Cruz, CA on Sunday and parked by the beach. There were cars on either side of me, white space dividing lines and a meter right in front of the space where I parked. I got a $48 citation for "parking in a red zone". So I called them up and asked what this meant, it means "no parking at any time under any circumstances". That means the ticket was quite obviously wrong as no-parking zones don't have parking meters in them.

      I don't see any way this can be an honest mistake. You can't write out a ticket saying a car parked in a no parking zone whilst standing next to a meter with plenty of time left on it.The ticket itself, their contact line and their website all make the appeals process rather prominent so apparently they get a lot of appeals. Unfortunately you only get two weeks to appeal, I'm not staying in California, I'll be on vacation next week and then I return to my home in Europe. So I'll probably just pay the $48, there's no way it makes sense to appeal a parking ticket for a rental car from the other side of the world whilst on vacation.

      This whole incident leaves a bad taste, it appears to be open and unchecked corruption on the part of municipal governments. The kind of thing I expect in a banana republic, not America.

  3. Class action lawsuit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Doing this *endangers* the public. Switching from yellow to red too quickly for drivers to safely stop will end up causing accidents, either from slamming on their brakes or paying more attention to the light instead of the road. The point of the traffic lights is to regulate traffic flow and keep the public safe. Adjusting the time so that fewer drivers can safely stop and need to have lightning reflexes and be staring at the light instead of the road will lead to more accidents.

    I smell a lawsuit brewing which will undo all the revenues. $120 million dollars? Well, now the lawyers for the next person to get run over at one of these modified lights can sue the government for on account of the timing adjustments to "increase revenue". And you just know some lawyers out there are going to advertise their services in these areas...

    The trick is to prevent people thinking of this as revenue. It's indication of a problem. You don't want that indicator to go up. Perhaps state or federal law should pressure local governments to make that indicator go down.

  4. Re:Citations? They need to be sued heavily by Seumas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like any government agency, police departments don't exist with the main priority of protecting and serving. Their primarily purpose is to generate revenue.

  5. Re:Citations? They need to be sued heavily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Where do you live, rural Alaska? In many urban areas, if you do that you will in fact get someone merging into that space about every 5 seconds.