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Red Light Camera Use Declined In 2013 For the First Time
SonicSpike writes "2013 may be a turning point for red-light cameras across the United States. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a non-profit largely funded by auto insurance companies, this year is the first time in nearly two decades that the number of American cities with red-light cameras has fallen — the systems were installed in 509 communities as of November 2013. While a single-year drop may not ultimately mean much, legislators across the country are increasingly agitated about the cameras. Bills are also pending in Florida and Ohio that would ban the devices entirely. A state representative in Iowa has also twice introduced legislation to ban RLCs (he was not successful). Part of this backlash has to do with the (sometimes accurate) perception that RLCs are a moneymaking scheme, pure and simple."
DOT studies a while back showed that increasing yellow light time by a second or so would reduce red-light accidents. However, RLC contracts often come with a stipulation that yellow light time is reduced, by at least a half second or more, to increase revenues. These things need to go, the sooner the better.
We either want laws or we don't. If you think less government is best, move to Somalia.
I'm pretty sure we can establish a middle ground somewhere between Somalia and North Korea.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
You're saying you have a right to run red lights? And law enforcement should not be able to identify you in your vehicle? Really?
Proverbs 21:19
I am reminded of a conversation I had with my daughter when she was about four. We were driving around and came to a stoplight. "What does red mean?" I asked her. "Stop", she replied. "And what does green mean?" I said. "GO!" she yelled. "And what does yellow mean?" She thought for a minute, and said, "Go real fast?"
This gave me some insight into the driving habits of her mother.
I know that red light cameras have sometimes been abused, but what are we supposed to do about the pandemic of red-light-running?
Proverbs 21:19
if you want to contract out police work
We don't want to contract out police work. Ever. Why even bother having a government if you're going to contract out its essential functions?
The profit motive should never come anywhere near law enforcement. The moment anyone in government starts thinking of profit instead of public service is the moment tyranny begins. The only thing that should guide a police department is how they can best serve their community, not how they can best increase their budget.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You're saying you have a right to run red lights?
Interpreting what I said in that way is like saying that people who oppose DUI checkpoints are asserting the right to drink and drive. Absurd. I simply oppose having government cameras everywhere.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Im sorry, where did you get the idea that this helped keep intersections safe? Keeping intersections safe is actually fairly trivial without any sort of RLC or punishment. All you need to do, which many places already have done, is slightly increase the length of yellow lights, and delay the green transition on the other traffic lane, so that there is a period of 1-2 seconds where all sides are red; and thus cars that may have been late past the line, have time to make it through.
Sure it may not play into some people's fetish for punishment and strict rules enforcement, but, it does a great job of increasing safety.
And in light of that, when cities get caught reducing the yellow light time at lights, which is less safe and increases the chances of an accident, then YES it is a money making scheme.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
My kingdom for mod points.
I argue that money paid for fines should be incinerated. Seriously. Government, whether it's city hall, the local police, the statehouse, or the national government, should never, ever have a financial gain when its citizens commit crimes. Ever. Scratch that; nobody, not government, not charities, not schools, nobody, should have a financial interest in citizens committing crimes. Make crime a source of income, and suddenly you find that whomever benefits from fines thinks a lot of things should be crimes.
Crime is bad (well, real crime like murder, rape and robbery). Nobody should benefit from it.
Restitution is different; that money should go to making the victim whole (not rich, whole), as much as possible.
But you wouldn't have an issue with a cop on every using a camera to film everyone who at the intersection, right?
That takes manpower. Disallowing government cameras in public places except those that are on a cop's person or on a cop's car seems like a more sensible policy to me. Mass, automatic surveillance is far different than a guy carrying a camera.
After all, you are in a public space.
Public space or no, it's our money, and they're supposed to be working for us. Hopefully they'll do what we say.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I disagree. Now I used to hate red light cameras.
In the evenings, especially Friday and Saturday nights there are sloppy drivers that have many times nearly hit me because they ran red lights.
I'd like for those sloppy drivers to get tickets in the mail --- there aren't enough police.
I don't think automated speeding ticket cameras are a good idea, but I don't see the harm in red light cameras --- just stop and they aren't a problem. Now the yellow times in my city are very reasonable and I understand if some cities are cheating on yellow light times to induce *FALSE* and/or *DANGEROUS* situations to generate revenue. I'm just stating that I think red light cameras, if used correctly, can be helpful --- *IF* the local government isn't abusing them.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Drivers will adapt. When they learn that there are 1-2 seconds during which all lights are red, passing a red light two seconds after it turned red will become normal.
Philipp
Says the 10 millionth person who's failed to actually look at the studies. Sorry, buddy, there's actual science that says you're wrong. What you have is a hypothesis. Guess what, it's an obvious one that's been tested and proven false over and over again.
Guess what else the studies show, all else being equal, adding a RLC to an intersection increases the number of accidents and injuries. Now is the time to go educate yourself and, if you're intellectually honest, change your mind.
Drivers will adapt.
No they don't. One or two seconds of "all red" causes a permanent reduction in accidents. This is not a hypothetical new proposal, where we have to guess how drivers will react. It has been done for decades in many cities.
Another way to reduce accidents is to have a count-down timer next to the light. I have never seen these in America, but they are common in some other countries. The countdown commonly starts 30 seconds prior, while the light is still green, giving drivers plenty of time to either slow down or speed up enough to make the light with time to spare.
I like what you wrote. This reminds me of a guy who rear ended my car and blamed me for it. He was 4 - 5 feet behind me going 70km/h before I started braking. Yes I did break suddenly and it was due to a minor lack of attention (I was looking in my rear view mirror trying to understand why he was tailing me).
The other driver argued with the cop about how it was my fault and the cop told him the following: "No matter how hard or what reason the person in front of you stops, it is your responsibility to keep a safe braking distance between you and the car in front". Case closed!
Problem is people get paranoid around them (don't want to get fined!) and slam on their breaks the instant the light turns yellow - even if it's safer to pass through the intersection. People sloppy enough to run red lights are probably inebriated and will do so regardless of the fine, so while having the camera will punish them, it won't protect you from getting rammed in an intersection. Additionally though the cameras will increase the number of people who slam on the breaks in front of you, causing lots of rear end collisions.
A RLC near me gives tickets to drivers who make a right turn on red, if the cars fail to COMPLETELY stop COMPLETELY prior to the intersection painted lines. On a daily occurrence, I see several drivers get tickets because they came to a complete stop INCHES past the intersection painted lines. In no rational universe would a police officer ever give a ticket to any of these drivers; yet, the municipality is collecting several thousands of dollars each day due to such minor infractions.
Actually, that's the way they got around the laws to put stop light/speeding cameras up in New Orleans.
It is nothing more than a revenue collection device, as that you don't go to traffic court over these and no points or marks go against your driving record.
It shows that is nothing more than for revenue generation. When people were protesting them (they almost got taken down awhile back) the first thing our govt and police said, was "we'll be losing $X if we do this...oh, and it will also make things less safe". That is a true story.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The problem is that no one has interest in doing it right. As far as I am concerned, the camera-at-traffic-light was solved in the 90s, when I was at MIT. I worked on the project for a while, and I remember the problems that we faced (and solved). Even better, time has made every single one of them trivial, through better cameras, faster and cooler processing, and cheap reliable communication.
So, here is how to make traffic cameras that work and save lives:
1. Once yellow is displayed, monitor the speed of the first vehicle in each lane that should be stopping.
2. Do not turn on the green (for any other lane) until every yellow (and later red) facing vehicle has initiated a deceleration that can bring to rest before the intersection.
3. Start flashing the red early if you detect a car that appears to be going too fast to stop before entering the intersection, but too slow to to enter it before the red is scheduled to appear.
4. Issue tickets to everyone entering the interception on red. As you don't delay the appearance of the red, this won't reduce the number of tickets.
5. Send warnings to people who have delayed the green, but have still come to a stop, reminding them that emergency stops are wearing down their shocks, tires, and brakes.
6. Send warnings to people who have crossed at flashing red, or speeding tickets if they did so by breaking the speed limit.
Note that none of this makes the green come earlier, or the red come later. You can still use an underlying, tested, proven reliable system to ensure that the new-fanged system does not give green to the wrong people at the same time.
This is going to save lives, and it was successfully testing in Boston last millennium. OK, so after a few weeks, the hardware went kaput, but that left the standard traffic light in place and there was no harm done. We lost interest. With today's tech, I could rebuild the system for one tenth of the price, and it would probably last a long longer.
No good deed goes unpunished...