Study: Red Light Cameras Don't Improve Safety

An anonymous reader writes: Ars Technica summaries a study by the Chicago Tribune (paywalled) that found red light cameras do not improve driver safety. "[W]hile right angle crash incidents have been reduced, rear-end crashes that resulted in injuries went up 22 percent." Chicago officials recently claimed that the cameras led to a 47% reduction "T-bone" injury crashes, using that statistic as evidence that the program is worthwhile. But the study's authors, who "accounted for declining accident rates in recent years as well as other confounding factors, found cameras reduced right-angle crashes that caused injuries by just 15 percent."

They also noted that the city chose to install many cameras at intersections where crashes were rare to begin with. Chicago has raised roughly $500 million from red light camera tickets since 2002. "[O]fficials recently admitted to the city inspector general that they had quietly dropped the threshold for what constitutes a red light camera ticket, allowing the tickets even when cameras showed a yellow light time just under the three-second federal minimum standard. That shift earlier this year snared 77,000 more drivers and $7.7 million in ticket revenue before the city agreed to change the threshold back.

Comments

Study financed by

[Snotnose]

the institute of No Shiat Sherlock. It was always about the revenue, safety was a smokescreen swallowed by the gullible.

Re:Study financed by

[ShanghaiBill]

the institute of No Shiat Sherlock.

It isn't really that obvious. There was an overall 5% increase in injury accidents at the intersections with cameras. But they did not mention the severity of the injuries. T-bone crashes (which were reduced) are likely to result in more severe injuries than rear-end collisions (which were increased). There were other complications: Most of the additional accidents occurred at intersections that were poorly chosen because they previously had few accidents. So it is possible that cameras improved safety at intersections with a history of accidents, and could improve safety overall if they are only installed at those intersections. Another issue is the yellow light duration. Longer yellows leads to fewer accidents, and some cities installing cameras also shorten the yellow light duration to increase revenue. It isn't clear if yellow light duration was decreased in the intersections studied.

The study shows that cameras can increase accidents, but it doesn't show they always increase accidents. If they are used more intelligently, they could be a net benefit.

Re:Study financed by

[BarbaraHudson]

Another issue is the yellow light duration. Longer yellows leads to fewer accidents, and some cities installing cameras also shorten the yellow light duration to increase revenue. It isn't clear if yellow light duration was decreased in the intersections studied.

Actually, it's right in the summary:

[O]fficials recently admitted to the city inspector general that they had quietly dropped the threshold for what constitutes a red light camera ticket, allowing the tickets even when cameras showed a yellow light time just under the three-second federal minimum standard. That shift earlier this year snared 77,000 more drivers and $7.7 million in ticket revenue before the city agreed to change the threshold back.

Re:Study financed by

[LordLimecat]

It was always about the revenue, safety was a smokescreen swallowed by the gullible

On the flipside, 80% of the people arguing against them really just want to be able to run red lights with impunity.

Re:Study financed by

[Hognoxious]

Changing the threshold for prosecution isn't the same as changing the actual duration of the yellow.

Re:Study financed by

[camg188]

Automatic speed/red light cameras
Distracted driver legislation
M.A.D.D.'s push for DUI BAC change below 0.01
All these make alarming claims about carnage on the roads requiring onerous legislation, but if you check the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) stats you can see that driving is safer now than it has ever been. There is no need for these laws. There are less injuries and fatalities year after year despite more cars on the road and more total miles driven.

Re:Study financed by

[gbjbaanb]

it could be part of the revenue - how many of those rear end crashes were because the tailing driver wasn't paying attention and trying to keep going, and how many because the driver in front fancied a slow crash that was someone else's fault to sue for "whiplash injury" compensation?

Re:Study financed by

[ShanghaiBill]

Actually, it's right in the summary:

No. The summary says that they issued tickets in situations where the yellow light duration was below the federal minimum. But it does not say whether those durations were the same for the before-and-after data sets being compared.

Re:Study financed by

[BarbaraHudson]

They changed the duration of the yellow light to under 3 seconds. Three seconds is the minimum duration as per federal law. So they were catching people going through a red light that should not yet have turned red. When they got caught they had to restore the yellow light to 3 seconds.

Re:Study financed by

[ShanghaiBill]

On the flipside, 80% of the people arguing against them really just want to be able to run red lights with impunity.

Indeed. A big problem with these cameras, is that they issue tickets to middle class white people. But a live cop will just pick on teenagers and blacks, and leave the rest of us alone.

Re:Study financed by

[BarbaraHudson]

The original poster wrote, in part:

It isn't clear if yellow light duration was decreased in the intersections studied.

To which I replied:

Actually, it's right in the summary:

To which you say:

No. The summary says that they issued tickets in situations where the yellow light duration was below the federal minimum. But it does not say whether those durations were the same for the before-and-after data sets being compared.

(sigh)

before the city agreed to change the threshold back.

Before, the stoplights met the legal requirements. Then they didn't (after installing the cameras) to catch more people who didn't have even the legal minimum time to clear the intersection. After the city got caught, they, as per the article, "agreed to change the threshold back." This has been going on for a few years in various cities.

So, the OP was wrong to say "It isn't clear if yellow light duration was decreased in the intersections studied." It's very clear just from the summary.

Re:Study financed by

[ShanghaiBill]

They changed the duration of the yellow light to under 3 seconds.

TFA does not say that. I did not read the original paywalled paper, but if it really says that, then that pretty much means the rest of the data is meaningless and the study is garbage. You cannot conclude that "cameras cause accidents" when a far more plausible explanation is "shorter yellow light durations cause accidents".

Re: Study financed by

[csha]

I live in Chicago and have followed this story as it was happening. The yellow light time didn't decrease, just the time when the cameras went off. The government has a standard of 3 seconds for a yellow light, but it also has a legal limit do the variation due to hardware accuracy. That limit means that legally a yellow can go for 2.9 seconds (or something similar) to account for hardware that doesn't hit exactly 3 seconds every time. The red light camera company began using this slightly lower limit as their standard, instead of 3 seconds. That is what caused the increase in the number of tickets. When they got caught they admitted that the city asked them to use the lower standard and then it was changed. I believe the courts upheld the tickets that were issued in the end, since technically they met the federal standards.

Re:Study financed by

[FatLittleMonkey]

The key part of ShanghaiBill's query was "in the intersections studied".

In the Tribune article, as in the summary, the comment about the change in the yellow-timing was a completely separate part of the article from that discussing the findings of their commissioned study. From the article I get the impression that the Tribune investigation which led to the reversal of the city's policy pre-dated the newspaper commissioning the study and therefore wasn't a confounding factor, however there's nothing in the summary that makes that clear. (And even in the article, I'm only interpreting the language, it isn't specifically stated.)

Re:Study financed by

[milkmage]

i'd rather be rear ended vs t-boned any day... 50% of those tbones are going to hit the driver's side

Re:Study financed by

[BarbaraHudson]

Perhaps you don't understand the term "change the threshold back." In this context that means "restoring it to the state it was in prior to being illegally lowered below the Federal minimum." They admitted it.

Re:Study financed by

[swb]

You could make the same claims about texting and driving. Texting and driving has undoubtedly gone up yet accidents continue to fall. It's not clear that texting and driving is the scourge it's made out to be. I'm not arguing it's safe, but maybe it's less unsafe than it's made out to be.

Re:Study financed by

[BarbaraHudson]

The practice of too-quick yellow lights was SOP for red-light cameras for years, because otherwise they would have failed to generate enough revenue to justify themselves.

None of this is new, it's been covered in the main-stream media before, Florida tried to do this state-wide and got caught a year and a half ago. Here's the map identifying the traps.

Re: Study financed by

[BarbaraHudson]

Nope - that's what the city argued, and lost. The judge tossed the tickets.

RIVER NORTH — Some of Chicago's yellow lights are too short, according to an administrative law judge who said he's thrown out "60 to 70 percent" of red-light camera tickets he's come across recently because of the discrepancy.

The city uses the state and federal standard of having yellow lights display for a minimum of three seconds at intersections. But an administrative law judge, who hears appeals from motorists ticketed by red-light cameras, said during a hearing this week that he has seen evidence that yellow times are slightly beneath that at some Chicago intersections with red-light cameras.

Over the objections of the city, Fagel was allowed to present his video evidence on two of the red-light tickets that he said showed yellow light times slightly under three seconds.

Judge Robert Sussman dismissed the two red-light camera tickets and then surprised the hearing room by saying the Department of Administrative Hearings was seeing a large volume of red-light camera violations that listed a yellow light time of under three seconds.

"We're having a big problem with these yellow lights," Sussman said. "Sixty to 70 percent are coming up under three seconds."

Sussman said he has routinely thrown out any ticket for which documentation shows the yellow light lasted less than three full seconds. And he said he will continue to do so until the timing is fixed.

Re:Study financed by

[FatLittleMonkey]

Nice attempt to move the goalposts.

However, none of that was related to ShanghaiBill's query, which was whether the change in the yellow-timing coincided with the study. Something that neither the summary nor the Tribune article make clear (although the way the article is written suggests to me the reversion pre-dates the study.) Nor did anything you linked to.

You failed to read ShanghaiBill's comment properly, then went on a rant about him failing to read the summary. Just accept that you were wrong, apologise to ShanghaiBill, and move on. Being wrong doesn't make you a bad person. Trying to twist out of it to save face does.

Re:Study financed by

[meerling]

This isn't exactly news, as various cities have been caught illegally reducing the yellow light durations below the federally mandated minimums for the purpose of fund generatiou by entrapment through red light cams.
There have also been several other studies that show that the red light cams actually increase accident rates.

Re:Study financed by

[meerling]

"The key part of ShanghaiBill's query was "in the intersections studied"."

Of course. It's kind of hard to include statistics on intersections that have not been studied, and there are also often resource issues preventing the study of all intersections in a city.

Re:Study financed by

[meerling]

I've been in both types several times as a passenger, and the T-bone collisions tended to be more painful over the next couple of weeks. The type of seatbelts they have in cars don't do crap for being thrown sideways. Now the 5 points in dune buggies and the like it doesn't matter which way you get bounced so long as your helmet doesn't fly off.

Re:Study financed by

[BarbaraHudson]

Actually, it was ShangahiBill who attempted to move the goalposts. My original response was to his claim that " It isn't clear if yellow light duration was decreased in the intersections studied." It's clear.

Re:Study financed by

[FatLittleMonkey]

Click the link, it isn't a "paper" it's a newspaper, and the Tribune article isn't paywalled. (Or at least isn't immediately.)

The article is written as if the yellow-timing issue was something the newspaper had previously caught the city on, while the study is a new thing they've done. Ie, the city reverted the timing to normal before the Tribune commissioned the study. But I'm reading between the lines, it isn't clear, and the "study" isn't published (in the normal sense), so there's no way to know for sure.

Re:Study financed by

[dryeo]

Any which way it's a crazy way to try to prevent accidents. Around here (BC) yellow lights are usually longer then 3 seconds depending on the road and average speed of traffic and red light camera has to catch you entering the intersection on a red light as you might have entered the intersection on green, perhaps to make a left and had to wait. As well many of the red light cameras are actually fakes, they have only a few actual cameras that they rotate into different intersections (all high accident zones). A flash works almost as well as a real camera to discourage running red lights as long as there is a reasonable chance of a fine.
If revenue is needed, it should be raised by taxes or fees.

Re:Study financed by

[Ol Olsoc]

It isn't really that obvious. There was an overall 5% increase in injury accidents at the intersections with cameras. But they did not mention the severity of the injuries. T-bone crashes (which were reduced) are likely to result in more severe injuries than rear-end collisions (which were increased).

A few months back, NPR had an article about this matter, I think from the same study. It was fascinating listening to an insurance company rep expressing satisfaction that although there were more accidents, they were "safer" accidents.

And while yes, it is really nice that T-Bone accidents were reduced, I persoonally find it difficult to think how wonderful it is to be rear ended, end be pleased that some insurance company thought it was preferable. I don't consider an increase in accidents acceptable. It's like the only thing they count is th ebodies, not people who are suddenly High risk, and get dropped from insurance.

Another issue is the yellow light duration. Longer yellows leads to fewer accidents, and some cities installing cameras also shorten the yellow light duration to increase revenue.

This is probably a very big influence. If I'm going to get hundreds of dollars in fines and the Police have shortened the yellow light timing in order to make a revenue quota, as soon as I see a yellow light, I'm lockin' them up.

The study shows that cameras can increase accidents, but it doesn't show they always increase accidents. If they are used more intelligently, they could be a net benefit.

You are right. But the big problem is that the intelligent use will go by the wayside as soon as politicians are convinced they can raise revenue without a tax hike. Shave a few seconds off the yellow light, and add a few million to the coffers, might be irresistible to some.

But really, I'm not accepting of any traffic control system that accepts increasing accidents. People are often killed in T-Bones, but they are also killed in rear ending accidents resulting in fiery death. I could see some liability there.

Re:Study financed by

[Ol Olsoc]

Changing the threshold for prosecution isn't the same as changing the actual duration of the yellow.

Nor is it clearly legal.

Re:Study financed by

[ShanghaiBill]

Perhaps you don't understand the term "change the threshold back."

You need to read the entire sentence. They are talking about a legal threshold for issuing a ticket. They are NOT talking the actual duration of the light.

Re:Study financed by

[QQBoss]

The summary is shit (not shiat), though, because THERE IS NO FEDERALLY MANDATED MINIMUM TIME FOR AN AMBER SIGNAL LIGHT! Why do people think there is??? There are lots and lots of recommendations, and most states follow them, but local traffic laws aren't covered by federal law, and shouldn't be unless a traffic light gets used on an interstate.

As a general rule, what was taught to the Civvies I knew (I was comp sci, the civivies were on the floor below us) when I was in college was that amber lights should have a minimum duration of 3 seconds and go up by .5 second for every 5 MPH over 30 MPH. The Institute of Traffic Engineers currently suggests it be .5 second longer for each 5 MPH over 25 MPH. But there is no federal law or federally enforced standard. There are just municipalities who can't (or won't) comprehend physics when it works out in their financial favor.

Re:Study financed by

[Ol Olsoc]

Actually, it was ShangahiBill who attempted to move the goalposts. My original response was to his claim that " It isn't clear if yellow light duration was decreased in the intersections studied." It's clear.

Even then it was just some interesting questions he raised. Probably not known until he goes through the Paywall. Not very likely that a consensus can be reached, because what are the metrics? Some might say increased safety is laees accidents, some may say loss of life, some may say insurance company payouts. Some may just want the ticket money.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetw...

If you use less accidents as a metric, it is very difficult to defend the cameras. If less T-Bone accidents, you can. Money? Oh frabjous day, this is a friggin cash cow!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

And safety? Hey, Washington will give you a redlight ticket if you don't come to a full and complete stop and turn right.

What is more, remember that the companies have a say, they love that money too. So some contracts specifiy the shortest yellow duration to maximize the number of people fined.

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/22/...

http://www.npr.org/templates/s...

There's plenty more.

Now as ShanghaiBill noted, the real increases in Safety come from longer yellow light times. Very short times tend to cause more in the intersection accidents, and coupled with cameras, are more likely to produce rear end accidents, especially with the very short yellow light timing - and some say the photos are taken while the light is still yellow. I know myself, if we had redlight cameras in my area and short times. If I see the yellow light, I'm standing on the brakes. Yeah, I might get rear ended, but it will be the other drivers fault. I might know I am going to get hit, but I'll avoid a big fine. What a stupid, stupid system, that in essence causes people to purposely cause traffic accidents. That's just insane.

In principle, I hae no issue with redlight cams. In real life however, politicians are too anxious to get any non-tax revenue they can, and the companies that install and run these things are the kinfolk of the for profit prison people, so the demands for increased profits every quarter will have a similar effect. More tickets will need to be issued, and company pressure placed on the local Government to increase fines in order to increase profit. So there will be tinkering, I suspect in the end to just randomly take photos,of cars in intersections because most people will just cough up the thousand dollars or so it will cost by that time rather than hire a lawyer. Sweet gig if you can get it.

Since the human factor is inevitably and fatally flawed, the cameras need to be banned outright.

Re:Study financed by

[Ol Olsoc]

"The key part of ShanghaiBill's query was "in the intersections studied"." Of course. It's kind of hard to include statistics on intersections that have not been studied, and there are also often resource issues preventing the study of all intersections in a city.

In the end, I think that human ability to be incredibly corrupt is more the demise of these cameras than anything else. I have no doubt that cameras can increase safety in intersections. I also khave no doubt that they will always be abused, both from the non tax revenue stream and from quarterly profit motives.

Re:Study financed by

[Ol Olsoc]

it could be part of the revenue - how many of those rear end crashes were because the tailing driver wasn't paying attention and trying to keep going, and how many because the driver in front fancied a slow crash that was someone else's fault to sue for "whiplash injury" compensation?

Virtually all accidents are the fault of the driver who rear ends another. They weren't in control of their vehicle, even if you locked up your brakes. I know of none that aren't.

Re:Study financed by

[Wycliffe]

Exactly. Not only is a $100 ticket a much smaller percentage of a middle class person's income, a middle class
person can afford to pay a lawyer $500 to fight it or can afford to take off work to appear in court, etc....
To the working poor, a $100 fine can be devastating but trying to fight it would be even more costly so they have
no choice. Here is a decent article about that: http://www.slate.com/articles/...

Re:Study financed by

[beelsebob]

before you insert race on this, know that red light cameras are basicly a tax that hits the city's poorest residents the hardest.

Huh? Are you asserting that there's some causal link between being poor and running red lights?

Re:Study financed by

[Nemyst]

That's far from all there is to it. The much bigger element is that cars are designed lengthwise - there's a much larger crumple zone at the front and the back than on the sides. In a T-bone collision, all that separates you from the other car's motor block is a fairly thin door and possibly some airbags.

Re:Study financed by

[rtb61]

What they are saying is there is a link between having fines as a percentage of income and having those fines actually have some real impact. Obviously the idea of a $100 fine to someone earning a million dollars a year is much like expecting a $1 fine having an impact on someone earning $10,000 per year. So for real impact and to reduce the number of motor vehicle impacts fines need to be a percentage of annual income so as to have a fair and equal impact on all people breaking the law.

Re:Study financed by

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused. Were they issuing red light tickets while it was technically yellow?

I just discovered if you disable javascript, it isn't paywalled, which happens to be confirmed by this year-old Reddit here: http://www.reddit.com/r/CHIBears/comments/176c72/tiny_rant_anyone_else_hate_the_chicago_tribune/

Although, I don't recommend disabling javascript to bypass the paywall as they may be violating some law, perhaps. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer.

Re:Study financed by

[AK Marc]

Regardless, I didn't see a statement that the study duration was entirely after the yellows met the federal minimums. One may presume that based on wording, but it doesn't seem to be plainly stated.

Re: Study financed by

[umafuckit]

I've been nailed this way once. There's a particular light I know with a stop camera and a yellow that lasts a very short period of time. It's obviously designed to trap people and generate money. I paid my ticket. I would have loved to have stuck it to them for the timing, but it didn't even occur to me to challenge based on this.

Re:Study financed by

[AthanasiusKircher]

And while yes, it is really nice that T-Bone accidents were reduced, I persoonally find it difficult to think how wonderful it is to be rear ended, end be pleased that some insurance company thought it was preferable. I don't consider an increase in accidents acceptable.

I agree. However....

It's like the only thing they count is th ebodies, not people who are suddenly High risk, and get dropped from insurance.

Under these circumstances, the person found at fault will almost always be the person who rear-ended the car in front. If the car in front of you is stopping to avoid a red light, and you haven't allowed adequate distance to stop so you are forced to rear-end them, guess what? You are already a "high-risk" tailgating driver.

(And that's regardless of the stupid and insane manipulation of yellows that should cause any public official involved in it to be put in prison.)

Tailgating causes a huge number of accidents, from minor to major pile-ups on the highway. No one is "suddenly high-risk" if they were tailgating -- they were already doing "high-risk" driving and just happened to be a situation where they were caught due to someone else trying to comply with the law. I can absolutely see why insurance companies would be pleased, because in this scenario, they get to catch people who have demonstrably behaved in a manner that often causes accidents, so it allows them to detect these people and potentially offset their bad driving with higher premiums or dropping them altogether (though the latter would probably require previous evidence of high-risk behavior).

Re:Study financed by

[Ol Olsoc]

Under these circumstances, the person found at fault will almost always be the person who rear-ended the car in front. If the car in front of you is stopping to avoid a red light, and you haven't allowed adequate distance to stop so you are forced to rear-end them, guess what? You are already a "high-risk" tailgating driver.

Yes, they were not in full control of their car. My point is not that they were not doing something they shouldn't have by following too closely, My point is that this system has made creating accidents where they wouldn't have otherwise happened an inherent part of the system. And that is batshit insane

Re:Study financed by

[BarbaraHudson]

The courts have already found that they are one and the same, which is why the tickets were tossed.

Re:Study financed by

[BarbaraHudson]

The judge in the Chicago case held otherwise. Just the first result that comes up - there are many more.

A Chicago judge is dismissing 70 percent of red light camera tickets.

"It took a lot of gumption for the judge to stand up to the city and tell them what's right," said Barnet Fagel of RedLightDoctor.com.

Fagel, who calls himself the Red Light Doctor, said it was a big breakthrough Monday when Administrative Law Judge Robert Sussman told city attorneys that he's been throwing out 70 percent of the red light camera cases before him, and the city should get its act together.

"He got pretty irritated at the city who keep issuing these tickets when the ameras or the traffic signals are not properly engineered or not set up right," Fagel said.

Fagel, using his own technology, convinced the judge to throw out two tickets. In one of the cases, Fagel analyzed video of a red light violation at Diversey and Ashland. He showed the yellow light lasted only 2.629 seconds, which is less than the minimum of three seconds required by law.

So, who am I going to believe - someone on slashdot or a judge's ruling? The judge has been tossing tickets for years because the yellows are too short. If he had been pulling his judgments out of his ass, the city would have appealed (it's all about the money), instead of finally caving in.

Re:Study financed by

[BarbaraHudson]

We put 15 of them in in various areas across the province. 15 for a population of 8 million isn't TOO bad. They have big warning signs letting you know you might have your picture taken, and there's no "short yellow" problem, because it really IS about reducing accidents and not about raising revenue.

Interestingly, the individual cities can't just set up red light photo cameras - only the provincial ministers of transport and the minister of public security can, because here it requires a modification of the highway safety code, and these guys can be replaced at the next election, so they're not going to draw a big bulls-eye on themselves.

Re:Study financed by

[kencurry]

In our area, a red light camera ticket is $400.

Re:Study financed by

[jythie]

Sadly those gullible people are also to blame for why the red light cameras were attractive as a revenue stream in the first place. If people just sat down and said "hey, we do not like taxes, but that is how services are funded" instead of buying into the "taxes are stealing from me!" BS then such sneaky ways of keeping books in the black would not be necessary in the first place.

Re:Study financed by

[Jane Q. Public]

But they did not mention the severity of the injuries. T-bone crashes (which were reduced) are likely to result in more severe injuries than rear-end collisions (which were increased).

This is "it stands to reason" logic, not empirical evidence. Other studies have concluded that the number of injury accidents and ALSO their average severity increased at camera intersections.

Re:Study financed by

[Jane Q. Public]

The article is written as if the yellow-timing issue was something the newspaper had previously caught the city on,

No, it isn't. It says

allowing the tickets even when cameras showed a yellow light time just under the three-second federal minimum standard. That shift earlier this year snared 77,000 more drivers

[emphasis added]

It is very clear that the cameras showed yellow lights under 3 seconds, this year.

Re:Study financed by

[Imagix]

What's "batshit insane" is following too closely. "Don't look at the original cause of the problem, let's look at secondary and tertiary effects." Bah.

Re:Study financed by

[mrchaotica]

You cannot conclude that "cameras cause accidents" when a far more plausible explanation is "shorter yellow light durations cause accidents".

Sure you can! You just have to add the additional claim "cameras cause shorter yellow light duration" and then apply the transitive property.

Re:Study financed by

[skrot]

Isn't this why there are demerit points, though? You can't keep breaking the road laws just because you can afford it. Soon enough you'll lose your license anyway.

Re:Study financed by

[Ol Olsoc]

What's "batshit insane" is following too closely. "Don't look at the original cause of the problem, let's look at secondary and tertiary effects." Bah.

Umm, you are saying what? You disagree with me that a system that causes accidents is not batshit insane?

Re:Study financed by

[ShanghaiBill]

Why do people insist on nitpicking

Because it is NOT nitpicking. It is a critical issue. If the yellow durations were actually changed, then everything else stated in the Tribune article is meaningless garbage. Changing the durations changes everything. You cannot conclude anything about the effect of cameras, without separating the camera effect from the effect of the signal changes.

Re:Study financed by

[ShanghaiBill]

Isn't this why there are demerit points, though?

Many states do not subtract points for camera violations. The rationale is that the driver has not been positively identified, and the ticket is issued to the registered owner of the vehicle, who may not be the driver.

Re:Study financed by

[rtb61]

Demerit points, hmm, who gives a crap when you can afford a driver and we are not talking golf here.

Re:Study financed by

[QQBoss]

In this case, you an believe both, as the statements aren't contradictory, only your misunderstanding of what you read. The law the judge is referring to is Illinois Uniform Vehicle Code, not federal law (though it generally does follow Federal Highway Administration guidelines). But you are more than welcome to keep believing your misconceptions and misunderstandings. Every state has one, btw.

Re:Study financed by

[jp10558]

I imagine all this becomes moot as we get self driving cars. Heck, there are a bunch of cars, down to Subaru and Dodge price ranges with camera or radar based pre-collision braking and warnings that will mitigate this as well.

  Technology will route around the problem. It's still stupid to create this problem though.

Re: Study financed by

[jxander]

It's transitive.

Cameras cause shorter yellows.
Shorter yellows cause accidents.
Ergo, cameras cause accidents

Of course, this presupposes a greedy and corrupt government that would willfully endanger their own people to earn a buck, which of course sounds completely ... uh ... well it actually sounds completely plausible. So yeah, let's go with that.

Re:Study financed by

[leslie.satenstein]

Another issue is the yellow light duration. Longer yellows leads to fewer accidents, and some cities installing cameras also shorten the yellow light duration to increase revenue. It isn't clear if yellow light duration was decreased in the intersections studied.

Actually, it's right in the summary:

[O]fficials recently admitted to the city inspector general that they had quietly dropped the threshold for what constitutes a red light camera ticket, allowing the tickets even when cameras showed a yellow light time just under the three-second federal minimum standard. That shift earlier this year snared 77,000 more drivers and $7.7 million in ticket revenue before the city agreed to change the threshold back.

To the author, re your tag-line. Are you boasting, or complaining, or justifying? My private life is mine

Re:Study financed by

[bored_engineer]

Three seconds is the minimum duration as per federal law.

What gave you that impression? Signal timing is determined by an equation, but may have some minimum defined by local or state law, or in a design manual.

At 25 MPH with no grade, depending on law or policy, it may be perfectly permissible to have a 2.8s interval, though it's common in practice to round that to a minimum 3s. Here's the equation from the 1999 ITE handbook:
Y=t + 1.467v/2(a+32g), where
t=perception-reaction time, typically assumed to be 1 s,
v=speed in MPH (ITE recommends using the 85th percentile speed, but many agencies use the posted speed.),
a=deceleration rate, assumed to be 10 ft/sec^2,
g=grade.
If you want to read more, NCHRP report 731details recommended guidelines, and provides some history for the recommendations.

Re:Study financed by

[bored_engineer]

Sorry. I didn't read the second paragraph of the summary, and only skimmed the Ars article. I still assert that it's not law, it's a recommendation.

Re:Study financed by

[bored_engineer]

I posted something similar above. NCHRP Report 731 hews pretty closely to the recommendations in the ITE Traffic Engineer's handbook. I'll add that the MUTCD, section 4d.26 refers to that 3 second minimum as guidance, and uses "should," rather than "shall" or "will."

Re:Study financed by

[BarbaraHudson]

To the author, re your tag-line. Are you boasting, or complaining, or justifying? My private life is mine

Others have also either been open about their transsexuality or outed. I was encouraged by their stories, so this is one way for me to pay it forward :-)

Re:Study financed by

[davydagger]

Huh? Are you asserting that there's some causal link between being poor and running red lights?

Strawman:
Mistating the fact that red-light cameras work, and that everyone who gets finded by a red-light camera actually did run a red-light. Even the ones that do, %90+ of the violators simply moved an inch past the sensor, both otherwise stopped

putting words in my mouth:
Asserting that I think that anyone was more likely to run a redlight, when i was merely suggesting they would have a harder time paying a fine, which most likely is totally bogus and would have never been given out by a flesh and blood officer, to anyone.

implications of the cameras is that they are a regressive tax that hit the poor, especially minorities, the worst.

Old news.

[Karmashock]

We had them installed in Los Angeles despite no one wanting them outside of the city council.

They then installed them in places that didn't actually have accidents such as busy though safe intersections.

The result was actually an increase in accidents because everyone had to start driving dangerously to avoid the cameras.

This was brought to the attention of the city council and they basically ignored it. The accidents were higher. People were unhappy with them. We had one christmas where some group of people wearing santa outfits put big colorfully wrapped cardboard boxes over the speed cameras that said "merry christmas". No one liked these things.

Then after the systems had been in place for awhile and they did a finacial audit... they found the cameras weren't actually making any money because most of the tickets were getting thrown out of court by judges that also didn't like them.

THEN the city council took them down... roughly about a week after that was revealed the cameras were disconnected or gone.

Which really highlights from several angles what this was always about.

Money.

Safety has nothing to do with it. Nothing what so ever. It was money - period. That is all these things are about or have ever been about. Cash. End of story.

Re:Old news.

[vux984]

The result was actually an increase in accidents because everyone had to start driving dangerously to avoid the cameras.

Nobody HAD to drive dangerously simply because the cameras were installed.

Otherwise I generally agree with you.

Re:Old news.

[bloodhawk]

We had them installed in Los Angeles despite no one wanting them outside of the city council.

They then installed them in places that didn't actually have accidents such as busy though safe intersections.

The result was actually an increase in accidents because everyone had to start driving dangerously to avoid the cameras.

This was brought to the attention of the city council and they basically ignored it. The accidents were higher. People were unhappy with them. We had one christmas where some group of people wearing santa outfits put big colorfully wrapped cardboard boxes over the speed cameras that said "merry christmas". No one liked these things.

Then after the systems had been in place for awhile and they did a finacial audit... they found the cameras weren't actually making any money because most of the tickets were getting thrown out of court by judges that also didn't like them.

THEN the city council took them down... roughly about a week after that was revealed the cameras were disconnected or gone.

Which really highlights from several angles what this was always about.

Money.

Safety has nothing to do with it. Nothing what so ever. It was money - period. That is all these things are about or have ever been about. Cash. End of story.

How exactly do you drive more dangerously because of a red light camera???

Re:Old news.

[ArsonSmith]

Actually yes they did, due to the extra threat of photos people are more likely to slam on the brakes at the last second when it would be safer to continue through the intersection.

Re:Old news.

[Karmashock]

They could just get tickets I guess. Not really reasonable though. Paying the city a fee, getting points on your license, etc just to drive the way they were driving before that was safer.

What the cameras force are sudden stops and accelerations. You can't avoid it. The cameras don't recognize Yellow lights the same way police officers recognize them. And as a result it creates a traffic hazard.

They were a shameless money grab that hurt everyone including the stupid cities that tried to impose them.

Re:Old news.

[jtownatpunk.net]

They did if they were expecting a standard yellow light, then it changed red in 2.5 seconds instead of the federal minimum of 3 seconds and slammed on the brakes to avoid running the red light. And 3 seconds is the minimum. It needs to be even longer on fast roads.

Generally, the yellow light should last a bit more than 1 second per 10 miles per hour. A 45mph road should have a yellow light that lasts about 5 seconds. But it's not required to be 5 seconds. It can be as low as 3 seconds. And many cities got caught going below even that minimum requirement at intersections with cameras. So people who drive that road know they have to stop fast on a yellow even if they can't do it safely. They have to balance the will get a ticket or might get rear ended.

Re:Old news.

[Opportunist]

Ticket: I have to pay.
Rear ended: His insurance will pay for it.

The choice is obvious. Fuck safety.

Re:Old news.

[Opportunist]

Because I will slam the brakes to stop. NO matter what. No matter how fast I am. No matter how close the person behind me is. No matter whether I even KNOW that there will be an accident. I will stop instead of running the risk of entering the intersection on a red light. If I get rear ended, his insurance will pay. If I get a ticket, I have to pay.

Safety? It's about money. On BOTH ends of the matter.

Re:Old news.

[vux984]

due to the extra threat of photos people are more likely to slam on the brakes at the last second when it would be safer to continue through the intersection.

If you are choosing between "slamming your brakes at the last second" or "running a red light" then you were driving unsafely.***

Further if you are "slamming your brakes at the last second" to avoid a ticket, AND you get rear ended as a result -- what was the guy behind you thinking? Sounds like he was driving even poorer than you were... because if you couldn't get through the intersection legally; then he certainly couldn't either, so he should have been slowing down to stop even if you hadn't fucked up and waited to the last second to slam on your brakes.

I'm not disputing that the rear-end accident rate went up. But only because the red light camera exacerbated already shitty driving habits. Nobody was driving safely and now HAD to drive unsafely. They were driving unsafely all along.

Further T-bone accidents were reduced. The severity of T-bone accidents tends to be a lot higher than rear-ends. Especially as the "slammed on the brakes at the last second scenarios" typically involve pretty small differences in relative vehicle speeds... e.g you slowing from 35mph to 20mhp and get rear ended by a vehicle that also slammed on its brakes from 35mph and hits you still moving 30mph... a difference of only 10mph.

T-bones tend to involve vehicles both hitting eachother at 30mph at orthoganal angles which is both a larger impact and harder for the vehicles accident systems to absorb.

(***Yes, we can argue that IF the yellow light timers were adjusted downward below what they should be for the speed limit to further increase revenues then yes. But that is a completely separate issue from merely installing properly configured red light cameras.)

Re:Old news.

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly do you drive more dangerously because of a red light camera???
Let me give you a hing..

A yellow — or amber — light means the red light is about to appear. You must stop if you can do so safely; otherwise, go with caution.

Knowing the yellow has been shorted to make sure they get fines, which would i choose?

- Sail into the light and risk a ticket
- slam on my brakes and have the guy behind rear-end me?

Re:Old news.

[The New Guy 2.0]

How exactly do you drive more dangerously because of a red light camera???

Instead of running a red light when the driver didn't see the yellow in time, the driver is tempted to pull a sudden stop that leads to brake damage and increases the risk of a following driver not assessing the scene fast enough leading to a rear-end collision, which pushes the car into the red light zone.

I dated a girl in Syracuse in 2000 where we were kissing in front of as many cameras as possible, and noticed it was not as complete a record as a constant DVR at that time. Such a system was proposed but rejected. Police supported us and we did get a photo taken by a red light camera, but that trick was hard to pull off. (I ended up not getting a fine, the Syracuse court system was in on the joke.)

Re:Old news.

[vux984]

They could just get tickets I guess.

While I don't care for the cameras I do live in a city with red light cameras. I've NEVER had any difficulty stopping safely; and I've never gotten a red light ticket.

As long as the city isn't screwing with the yellow light duration, if you were driving safely then red light cameras really don't affect you.

just to drive the way they were driving before that was safer.

Running red lights is not safe.

What the cameras force are sudden stops and accelerations. You can't avoid it.

Again, around here, that's just not the case. When the light turns yellow, people prepare to stop for the red. Unless they are moving at sufficient speed to enter the intersection while its still yellow. Its basic driving 101.

If red light cameras make you are slam on the brakes then you are driving poorly.

Re:Old news.

[vux984]

All you've done is argue that its not the presence of red light cameras causing accidents; its the screwing around with the yellow timing that is.

Screwing around with the yellow durations -- that leads to an unsafe intersection.

Nobody has to drive poorly if red light cameras are installed and the intersection is setup properly.

Re:Old news.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care what point you are trying to make, but when you start to victim blame, you lose credence. Don't blame a driver for the one behind them tail-gating.

I don't know where you live, but where I do, and likely where the other poster does, it isn't uncommon to have less than a second of time between your vehicle and another's. Sure, it sucks, but those tailgaters are the ones at fault. If I let more than 1.5 seconds of space in front of me during heavy traffic, then another car will fill that spot often enough. What do you do? Do you keep slowing down (creating a bit of a traffic hazard) and letting more and more people pass you to take up the newly minted space in front, or do you keep pace with transient traffic?

I have never heard of a long-term cost-effective successful red light camera story. I've heard better things about removing red lights in low traffic areas and replacing them with stop signs, which makes drivers pay more attention to the intersection.

Re:Old news.

[bloodhawk]

Then that is either your bad driving habits or yellow lights that change to fast. While I agree those cameras are nothing more than revenue raising, if they are causing more accidents then there is another problem that needs addressing.

Re:Old news.

[Pinky's Brain]

It would be even safer to drive the speed limit (or even below it if you have a heavy load) and not trying to change lanes near the point of no return.

Never ran a red light where it wasn't my own fault.

Re:Old news.

[sjames]

If you are choosing between "slamming your brakes at the last second" or "running a red light" then you were driving unsafely.***

There is a significant correlation between installing the cameras and shortening the yellow. At the same time, even if the yellow was too short even before the cameras were installed, they increase the risk of accidents since people will no longer be willing to run the very beginning of the red (before traffic the other way starts moving).

Re:Old news.

[beakerMeep]

The federal guidelines are too short for yellow lights. And if all it took to make things safer was to lengthen the yellow, why do we need to trade once accident for another? What kind of justification is that? "It's less severe an injury!"

Given the way people actually drive, why not just increase the yellow?

Re:Old news.

[Opportunist]

Actually I have on more than one occasion. Funny enough, never in front of a traffic light.

I don't know about your country, in mine it's easy: You rear end someone, you're guilty. Period. There is no good explanation you could possibly give why you couldn't keep enough distance that you had enough time to react and stop your vehicle before slamming into another one.

I know exactly one case that didn't end like this, and only because the rear-ending car could PROVE that the other one was slamming into him in reverse instead of the other way around.

Re:Old news.

[Opportunist]

Well, thankfully I live in a country where it is virtually impossible to get into the predicament due to the special way our traffic lights work. You know 5 seconds before your green light goes to yellow that it's about to happen.

Re:Old news.

[dgatwood]

I don't know about your country, in mine it's easy: You rear end someone, you're guilty. Period. There is no good explanation you could possibly give why you couldn't keep enough distance that you had enough time to react and stop your vehicle before slamming into another one.

Actually, there's one exception. If a driver slams on his or her brakes right after making a sudden lane change into your lane, then the accident is almost always the fault of the driver in front. However, without a dashboard camera, you're unlikely to be able to prove that the driver in front did this unless the driver admits fault, which is why this is a very common form of insurance fraud.

Re:Old news.

[drinkypoo]

Well, thankfully I live in a country where it is virtually impossible to get into the predicament due to the special way our traffic lights work. You know 5 seconds before your green light goes to yellow that it's about to happen.

It's been well-demonstrated that some cities adjusted the yellows downwards. That's not a problem inherent to red light cameras, but there's no other "good" reason to do it.

Re:Old news.

[jtownatpunk.net]

Oh, my Lord. They screwed with the yellow light durations to increase the fines issued by the cameras. Without the cameras, nobody would have messed with the timings of the traffic signals.

Re:Old news.

[meerling]

That's true in some places in the USA, and not others. There's no one set of rules for that nation wide.

Re:Old news.

[meerling]

I have, but there's not much you can do when your brakes suddenly go out and you have the horrible feeling you are suddenly in a cheap ass hollywood action flick. Got stopped safely. Mechanic said it was a bubble or something in the brake lines.
I can work on computers, missiles, and a lot of other high tech or crazy things, but I don't work on cars because I know little beyond theories on their mechanics.

Re:Old news.

[ruir]

I used to drive next to the other car when I started driving...it was disruptive enough for a novice driver to have idiots fill up that space. Nowadays, I am more generous in space, and often in a while someone will fill that spot often in a while. Such is the dynamic of the traffic. However I prefer to drive safe than be another idiot on the road.

Re:Old news.

[meerling]

Except there seems to be a very high and highly suspicious correlation of improperly timed yellow light durations at intersections with red light cameras. So yes, you can imply that the red light camera is at fault because the yellow wouldn't have been shortened to generate more revenue if it wasn't there.

Re:Old news.

[meerling]

Don't forget that there are red light cameras that have been proven to be giving tickets to people that are clearly NOT entering intersections during a red, or even a yellow. Sorry, but those things are just a cash grab con/scam by the city governments.

Re:Old news.

[Jack Griffin]

Running red lights is not safe.

Depends, I used to have a moped that didn't always get picked up on the light sensor. I could sit at a set of lights indefinitely until a bigger vehicle came along and triggered the lights for me. I learnt from that point to treat a red light the same as a stop sign. Use your brain, ensure traffic is clear then go.

Re:Old news.

[Jack Griffin]

Ticket: I have to pay. Rear ended: His insurance will pay for it.

The choice is obvious. Fuck safety.

I'll take a few hundred dollar penalty than be forced to deal with the problems of whiplash for the rest of my life...

Re:Old news.

[Karmashock]

Anyone that drives finds the answer to be self evident.

Re:Old news.

[thegarbz]

So people who drive that road know they have to stop fast on a yellow even if they can't do it safely.

Ticket: I have to pay.
Rear ended: His insurance will pay for it.

The choice is obvious. Fuck safety.

I think both of you don't understand what it means to stop safely. Hint: It NEVER involves someone behind you. Stopping safely means you pull up before the light and don't end up stopped in the middle of an intersection. You can't stop safely at yellow if it switches to yellow and you're 2m from the intersection doing 40, you simply will end up at the very least in the intersection. But there is absolutely no reason why you can't try if you have the stopping distance.

If at any point you're rear ended (doesn't matter if there's a 40 year old truck behind you, and you're driving a Lotus Super 7 with seemingly unlimited grip and a 2m stopping distance), the person who is behind you was driving unsafely all along.

No one is fucking safety, at the worst you're calling out the douchbag tailgater on his shithouse driving by hitting him in the insurance.

Re:Old news.

[donaldm]

My son got caught with the front wheel of my car just over the first white line (he was breaking at the time) the second picture showed the front wheels just over the second white line and he had stopped. The traffic lights where actually green although there was a red right hand turn arrow and he was not turning right. From the pictures it was a rather confusing intersection and what I can gather is he should have cleared the intersection before he could have his picture taken.

Unfortunately for him he will have to take this matter to court or face a $400 fine and three points off his license.

So I fully agree with you and the Governments counter to all this is "Think of the children" or some such trivial excuse. As for the "Children" we have school zones which require motorists to travel at 40 kph which is fine if you know when school times are active but up until a few years ago there were no flashing lights which basically meant you could be travelling in an 80 kph zone and be booked for exceeding 30 kph which in Australia you could loose your license and have to pay a fairly steep fine. Thankfully we now have school zone lights but this was only after lobby groups pushed for them.

Re:Old news.

[Ol Olsoc]

The result was actually an increase in accidents because everyone had to start driving dangerously to avoid the cameras.

Nobody HAD to drive dangerously simply because the cameras were installed.

Otherwise I generally agree with you.

Depends on what you mean. I'f I'm going to have to pay over 500 dollars for a ticket, and you are tailgating me, as soon as the light turns yellow, I'm standing on them. 4 Wheels locked up. You will hit me from behind. It will be your fault, and a normal situation was just made more dangerous, because without the cameras, I'd just drive normally through the yellow light, and you wouldn't hit me. I don't want you to hit me, but if it's a choice between that fine, and the increase in my insurance rates possibly losing my license, or a relatively low speed rear ending - you gonna lose.

And people should never have to make decisions like that.

Re:Old news.

[ArsonSmith]

Doesn't matter what you or I do or what is or isn't safe driving. Fact is red light cameras reduced the safety of the over all driving experience.

Re:Old news.

[beelsebob]

Given that you have 4-5 (depending on speed) seconds of yellow, there's absolutely no excuse to slam on the brakes. As OP said - the dangerous driving is entirely independent of the lights.

Re:Old news.

[beelsebob]

I don't care what point you are trying to make, but when you start to victim blame, you lose credence.

What are you talking about? No one forced you to slam your brakes on at the last second. There's no victim here, there's no person forcing you into it. In order to be victimised you need to have someone making you a victim, and that person doesn't exist.

All OP is doing is blaming the person at fault - that is, the person who's taken longer than 4 seconds to make the decision to gently brake for a red light, when given plenty of warning by a yellow.

Re:Old news.

[beelsebob]

Speaking as someone coming from the UK, the idea that the federal guidelines for yellows are too short is laughable. You guys get roughly twice as long on yellow as we do in the UK. I'd actually argue that the guidelines are too long . The very long yellow light times encourage people to think "it's okay, I can make it through". Meanwhile, yellow merely being a warning "red is coming, you'd better stop" makes things much safer.

Re:Old news.

[beelsebob]

To continue on my above comment (which I shouldn't have clicked submit on so quickly)... What could change to give you more leeway is that you could stop the opposing flow going green the very moment that one flow of traffic goes red. In the UK, the sequence for current, and opposing traffic in pairs goes (green, red), (yellow, red), (red, red), (red, yellow), (red, green) - that extra gap where neither direction has even a yellow, and then where the traffic that's about to start is shown yellow, allows people to relax and stop barging through so much.

Re:Old news.

[beelsebob]

They did if they were expecting a standard yellow light, then it changed red in 2.5 seconds instead of the federal minimum of 3 seconds and slammed on the brakes to avoid running the red light.

If your decision to brake or not was based on "I'm 2.5 seconds away from the junction, and that yellow has to show for 3", then you're driving dangerously.

Re:Old news.

[beelsebob]

Because I will slam the brakes to stop. NO matter what. No matter how fast I am.

That's the point - if you're going so fast that you need to slam the brakes on, then you were already driving dangerously. Stop that, now.

Re:Old news.

[Karmashock]

Government never takes responsibility unless they want to take responsibility.

Most liability laws exempt the government.

Re:Old news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you're a perfect driver, there are many examples where a red light camera can make you slam on the brakes because others are bad at driving;

Stupid person in front of you is texting, eating, etc. As they are near the intersection, light just turns yellow as they look up, and they dont know its only been yellow for a tenth of a second. They are broke, and knowing this intersection has a camera, decide to dangerously slam on the brakes rather than safely going thru the beginning of the red light and risking getting a ticket.

You're keeping a safe distance, so have time to quickly stop before rear ending the car in front.

The stupid person behind you, assuming they should be able to make it thru while still yellow, accelerates a bit to make sure they don't hit the start of the red light, but do this right as you stop quickly.

Re:Old news.

[Opportunist]

I expect him to have insurance because, at least in my country, your number plates are gone if you don't. You simply don't get any unless you can prove that you're covered. And even if he doesn't pay his premium for a time, his insurance is required to cover him until they can be assed to cash in his plates (so guess who is REALLY interested in you NOT having any license plates when you stop paying for your insurance?).

Trust me, whoever is on the road with license plates in my country HAS insurance. And without plates you don't get far, our police kinda wants you to have some.

Re:Old news.

[Opportunist]

Allow me to present a sensible traffic light.

Please tell me how in the world you could possibly be surprised by it turning yellow. If your reaction speed is THAT low, you should NOT be on the road!

(and yes, that yellow phase is a bit short, but essentially you should not even enter the intersection at yellow anymore)

Re:Old news.

[Opportunist]

At 30 mph your braking time (the time between slamming the brakes on and you stopping) is 1.8 seconds. Reaction time varies, but depending on circumstances it usually is between half a second and a second.

At 55 we're already at well over 2.5s for braking alone, without reaction time.

All of this assuming dry weather and tire and brake condition.

In short, not slamming the brakes down will not allow you to come to a stop before the traffic light turns red.

Re:Old news.

[QuasiSteve]

the very beginning of the red (before traffic the other way starts moving).

If you're approaching an intersection with that mindset, you're already driving unsafely.

It's also making the terrible assumption that all lanes from the next direction to get a green are in fact occupied and standing still, rather than there being open lane with somebody cruising through at 55mph because they got a green and saw no reason to slow down (that reason being you.)

Re:Old news.

[Cederic]

So 15% of the US are shit selfish drivers. Nonetheless, if red light cameras make you slam on your brakes then you're driving badly.

It's a fucking junction. You don't have to go through it at the sped limit. You can slow down as you approach it, to give you more time to react if the lights change.

That's what normal people do. Sensible, safe drivers, that get to pick up their kids from the whatever-the-fuck proxy for their shit parenting place they've put them in because they didn't have an accident because they know how to fucking drive.

How about you just plan your life better - start with not having fucking children, you're clearly not equipped for it.

Re:Old news.

[Cederic]

Never assume someone hitting you is going to have insurance.

I don't actually care. I have my own insurance. It'd be nicer to claim off theirs but I don't have to.

Of course, it'd be even nicer to not need a claim. When coming to an emergency halt (accident in front, or genuinely boneheaded driver nearly causing one, or just me failing to realise the traffic had started going 40mph slower than me) I generally look in my rear view mirror and very much adjust the extent of my braking to give the car behind as much space as possible while giving myself enough space to stop.

But I drive cars that can stop very quickly - good brakes, good grip, good reactions. So I usually have the luxury of not slamming the brakes on full, but instead adjusting the rate of braking to suit the situation.

Re:Old news.

[Cederic]

Or, you know, just drive fucking slower so that you can safely stop in time.

Re:Old news.

[Cederic]

Or, you know, just fucking drive slower so that you can safely stop in time.

Re:Old news.

[Ol Olsoc]

Or, you know, just drive fucking slower so that you can safely stop in time.

True. Remember though, all actions have consequences. Driving slower, and leaving a safe distance between vehicles will slow traffic. Multiply that by the huge number of vehicles, and you have traffic issues, More cars in any area for a longer period of time.

This is in no way trying to excuse tailgating. I always leave a lot of space between myself and the next guy, both so that I avoid running into somoene's rear, and to give myself a buffer for the asshole behind me. But given that people like to ride as close as possible (as in maybe 4 feet) behind each other, I'm leaving maybe 60 feet at 35 mph, which would allow "normal" drivers to shoehorn in three vehicles.

Re:Old news.

[sjames]

The root cause of the problem is a yellow too short to allow every car in motion to either clear the intersection of stop safely before the red. Once the light traps you in that situation it's just a matter of choosing your risk.

Throwing an unfair fine into the mix can lead to poor decisions.

Re:Old news.

[ArsonSmith]

Yea, I'd only ever seen that in movies. I always thought it was a dramatic addition, I've still never seen it in the US but there are many parts of the US I've never been to.

Re:Old news.

[Opportunist]

So tell me, how fast should I drive? Please give me a number to work with.

Re:Old news.

[Opportunist]

Yes, Sheldon. Now go play with your trains.

Re:Old news.

[ArsonSmith]

That is wonderful if everyone is a perfect driver such as yourself. Some people are not great drivers, some are distracted even for a second, that 4-5 is easily dropped to 1-2 just by checking your rear view mirror and dash gauges before looking up again.

If the world were full of perfect drivers, with endless patients and no emotion, then your theory would hold mostly true. Until then we have to adjust for the world we live in.

Re:Old news.

[beelsebob]

If you spend 3 seconds not looking in front of you in a car, you're driving dangerously to start with. Count out 3 seconds in your head, and consider closing your eyes for that long while driving - you'll realise it's a really long time. In reality, people glance away at instruments/mirrors for 100ms at a time, not 3 seconds at a time.

Re:Old news.

[beelsebob]

At 30 mph your braking time (the time between slamming the brakes on and you stopping) is 1.8 seconds. Reaction time varies, but depending on circumstances it usually is between half a second and a second.

At 55 we're already at well over 2.5s for braking alone, without reaction time.

Don't just pull numbers out of your ass.

1) The amount of energy at 55mph is roughly 5 times higher than at 30mph, given that brakes dissipate a fairly constant amount of energy at all speeds, that means your braking time at 55 is 5 times that at 30.
2) Thankfully, that doesn't mean your braking time at 55 is 9 seconds for an emergency stop. That's because your figure for 30mph is bullshit. The actual braking time for an emergency stop from 30mph is 0.8 seconds, and at 55, roughly 4 seconds.

All this put together means that when you're presented with a 4 second orange at 30mph, and you have to do an emergency stop, that basically means you fucked around for 2.8 seconds. That is, the 4 seconds is made up of 0.5 seconds of reaction time, 2.8 seconds of fucking around doing nothing at all, and then 0.8 seconds of actually stopping. As I said before - if you're failing to stop for a red when given a warning with an orange, you're driving dangerously.

Note, this can be observed in every day life. It's trivial to test, you approach some lights at the speed limit. When they turn orange, you start to gently brake for the lights. Observe that you come to a stop before the lights even turn red.

Re:Old news.

[Karmashock]

The lights become inefficient if you do that. You have to appreciate what they're replacing. Traffic guards. Literally a man would stand in the middle of the road and direct traffic.

You could either have a stop sign or a traffic guard. That was how it used to work.

When they introduced traffic lights, they were basically blind traffic guards. They are inherently less efficient then actual traffic guards though of course much less expensive.

At this point, I'd suggest we go to round-a-bouts or possibly traffic lights that are aware of local traffic conditions in real time and respond to them by changing light durations.

THAT would be a real safety innovation. The city councils won't touch it because it doesn't make money and that is all they care about these days.

But consider cameras used not to give tickets but to adjust light timings in real time.

So for example, late at night where there is only one person at the intersection... they get a green light instantly.

During periods of the day where there is light traffic the system could slip into an egalitarian mode where it lets everyone have their turn much like a stop light.

Then during periods of high traffic it could prioritize given lanes to prevent traffic jams and make the intersections more efficient.

In regards to yellow lights... Again, model the AI on the traffic guard. What is he going to do? He's not going to tell a lane it can go until the lane is clear from the last transit. That means, the light will NOT go green until people are done going through even if he told them it wasn't their turn anymore.

Think about it. An aware intersection. Not a blind traffic guard that just works on clock work timing. But rather, an active system that knows what is going on.

We could build one right now and it probably wouldn't be expensive... oh after the graft and corruption gets at it who knows what it would cost. But the actual cost of the mechanism shouldn't be a big deal.

Re:Old news.

[ArsonSmith]

I'd rather live in your universe.

Re:Old news.

[Uberbah]

Never ran a red light where it wasn't my own fault.

Then you've never frequently driven an intersection that had it's yellow light time shortened by a couple of seconds to increase the number of tickets handed out. That, or you drive like old people fuck.

Re:Old news.

[Uberbah]

What are you talking about? No one forced you to slam your brakes on at the last second.

No one but the state that can send you a ticket for $300. Which, for a wage-slave, could easily be the difference between having a roof over your head or moving into the backseat of your car.

Re:Old news.

[Cederic]

Perhaps at a speed appropriate to the road, the weather, the time of day, the other traffic, the proximity of junctions for which you may need to stop.

You know, the same as most people that get safely through a day driving.

If you absolutely definitively want a single fixed speed at which we're safe while you're driving I can only suggest 0mph

Re:Old news.

[david_thornley]

Some red-running is annoying but harmless. If the light turns red and you go through the intersection 0.1 seconds later, you're not going to cause an accident. If you go through at the halfway point of the red cycle, you've got an excellent chance of causing an accident. I'd think that, if the cameras were a little forgiving, people wouldn't slam on their brakes at the last minute.

Having been rear-ended three times with serious back pains after two of the accidents, I may be prejudiced.

Moreover, you're arguing that, if drivers were better, the red-light cameras wouldn't cause accidents. In the absence of a plan to get people driving better, this is completely irrelevant. If we all drove properly, we wouldn't need red-light cameras because nobody would run a red. We want to either make people drive better or design systems to reduce injuries given the drivers we have, not blame bad drivers for accidents that wouldn't have occurred if there hadn't been a red light camera.

I assure you that, when you're semi-incapacitated and in pain, being able to blame somebody else's driving for the injury isn't really much help.

Re:Old news.

[vux984]

If the light turns red and you go through the intersection 0.1 seconds later, you're not going to cause an accident

Agreed.

If you go through at the halfway point of the red cycle, you've got an excellent chance of causing an accident

Also agreed.

I'd think that, if the cameras were a little forgiving, people wouldn't slam on their brakes at the last minute.

No. I think there needs to be an easy line in the sand. If you enter the intersection on red you should get a fine.

If you are going to allow a half second or one second leeway on entering the red -- then it makes more sense to me to leave the hard line on the red, and just make the yellow 0.5 or 1 second longer.

I've given it a fair bit of thought actually, and I think the following is the best way to run the system:

100% of the revenue generated from any criminal penalty or fine should also be redistributed back to the residents in the form of a direct payment.

This ensures the city doesn't view the cameras (and any other crime) as revenue; and no part of the government becomes dependent on that revenue.

Then the city will make rational (and correct) decisions where and how to install and configure cameras, and when to decommission or rotate them elsewhere, based purely on safety objectives.

It does mean taxes have to go up a bit to cover the overall revenue loss; since enforcement is purely a cost centre now. But it balance out with the rebate. And having it go through the rebate and tax cycle means the costs/benefit of running the program is exposed directly to voters; and the city has no incentive or benefit from running a program unless it's actually working to improve safety, etc.

Re:Old news.

[bored_engineer]

But consider cameras used not to give tickets but to adjust light timings in real time.

It's already being done. Los Angeles started in 1984 in anticipation of the Olympics, with system called ATSAC. There are several different types in use today.

Re:Old news.

[Cramer]

Right. And every light in the city has the exact same yellow time. Do you know how long that light is going to stay yellow? Are you 100% certain of that? Are you sure that PoS isn't going to snap your picture even during the yellow cycle? The things only make drivers more panicky. This is further fueled by every bloody city in every study having been found to shorten yellow cycles to intentionally increase the number of tickets.

Re:Old news.

[beelsebob]

So... don't brake the law, and you won't get a $300 ticket... It's that easy.

Re:Old news.

[Cramer]

Ah, but there isn't "plenty of warning". Even if your foot is on the brake and you are (dangerously) focused intently on the light, it'll take a quarter second to engage the brakes. (there have been studies.) When some asshat set the timer to 2.8s to drum up more revenue, you have two seconds to get clear or come to a full stop. That's going to be an "eventful" stop at normal speeds (35+), and a complete "oh shit" for the person behind you -- even 3 car lengths back, which in city traffic is unlikely. (if there's room for a car, some idiot will fill it.)

Re:Old news.

[Cramer]

If you are approaching a RED LIGHT at 55mph without braking, you're the asshole about to cause a wreck. There's a reason there's a delay between a red and the next green. (to give people in the intersection time to move through it.)

Re:Old news.

[Karmashock]

it isn't automated... and it is not widely distributed. I live in LA. There aren't cameras on intersections.

Re:Old news.

[strikethree]

It is great news that where you live, everything is working correctly. This whole article is about places where everything is NOT working correctly.

Re:Old news.

[QuasiSteve]

That's going to depend on your definition of "approach".

250 yards away - plenty of distance to come to a stop for a red light, reaction time doesn't even factor into it - and the light turns green? I'm not particularly incline to slow down unless I notice there being a situation that warrants it.

But then there's you, who apparently not only sees traffic light turning red as a "well the other directions will take some time to get moving anyway", but adds an additional "plus there's the delay, so I'll be fine running this lololol", who's going to ruin both our days :)

Now if I approached it still at 55mph at, say, 50 yards thinking it will turn green (based on experience, say), then regardless of whether it will or not - you're right, I'd be the asshole.
( And yes, I do see that in everyday traffic far more often than I'd like, too. )

Re:Old news.

[david_thornley]

My gut feeling is that allowing a little leeway on the red would be better than lengthening yellow, for psychological reasons. It would be interesting to know whether that's true or not.

Re:Old news.

[bored_engineer]

Until four years ago, I worked in Los Angeles as a traffic engineer. The ATSAC system is used on more than 4,000 intersections, is interconnected, and makes adjustments to signal timing either manually or automatically. There aren't cameras at all of the monitored intersections, but you don't need cameras to measure traffic volumes and speed, they're just an additional tool.

Further, the systems that use cameras for vehicle detection are falling out of favor. There are too many conditions, such as rain, snow, fog and bright sunshine that can befuddle the systems and cause them to fall back to pre-set timing rather than relying on vehicle detection. Where inductive loops aren't used, radar is proving to be more reliable than cameras.

Even where there's no interconnection, most intersections have controllers that are considerably more sophisticated than simple timers.

Re:Old news.

[vux984]

The point is that you don't need to get rid of the system because it can work properly. The cameras dont necessarily need to make on drive poorly -- a poorly configured system might incent that behaviour, but you can configure the system better, you don't HAVE to get rid of it entirely to fix the problem.

Re:Old news.

[vux984]

Maybe. I think I'd prefer the law itself to be written as enforcement starts the moment it turns red. But I certainly don't see any harm in having the cameras configured with 0.5 second of grace; so as not to catch anyone right on the line.

I'd probably still up yellow durations though.

Re:Old news.

[Karmashock]

I drive around LA a lot at night and that means driving up to intersections where I am the only one there.

How common do you think it was that I'd wait for about 3 or more minutes for the light to change when I was the only person there?

Try almost always.

I've noticed no difference between what LA is doing and what any small town does. The intersections seem entirely based on timings.

Just the personal experience of a driver. If you were doing something... I didn't see it. And that's not good.

Re:Old news.

[beelsebob]

No, 2 seconds is not going to be an "eventful" stop from 35mph. 0.8 seconds is an "eventful" stop from 35mph. You could stop in less than half the distance to the lights in that time.

What you're attempting to assert is that it's impossible to stop safely for a red light when you get an orange. This is clearly false, millions of people do it successfully every day.

Re:Old news.

[q4Fry]

... Driving slower, and leaving a safe distance between vehicles will slow traffic. Multiply that by the huge number of vehicles, and you have traffic issues, More cars in any area for a longer period of time.

This is in no way trying to excuse tailgating. I always leave a lot of space between myself and the next guy, both so that I avoid running into somoene's rear, and to give myself a buffer for the asshole behind me. But given that people like to ride as close as possible (as in maybe 4 feet) behind each other, I'm leaving maybe 60 feet at 35 mph, which would allow "normal" drivers to shoehorn in three vehicles.

W.r.t. the first paragraph, one would hope that "slower" means "the speed limit" which in a sane universe would actually be the maximum safe driving speed.

W.r.t. the second paragraph: Assholes; pretty much the sole reason we can't have nice things. As a side note, it's my understanding that following too closely or (ironically) too far away is what causes most traffic. You actually entice the assholes to merge into your lane when leave that much room. Then, you have to slow down to re-adjust for your minimum-safe-distance when they swerve in, and everyone behind you has to brake to maintain their respective distances. I'd link the study, but I can't find it. :-\

I'm not saying you're an asshole; that would be the tailgaters. But your behavior tempts them to wreak more havoc.

Re:Old news.

[q4Fry]

We had that blinky-green business at an intersection near a place I used to live. I thought it was great, and felt much less pressure on whether I'd make the intersection.

There's a hidden danger with the red-yellow, though: Some people start early. Another place I lived had pedestrian timers that counted down how long a street-crosser had to finish walking. When the counter ended, the stop light that direction turned yellow. It didn't take long for the drivers stopped perpendicular to the crosswalks to start watching the pedestrian signals. They'd wait for them to end, wait another second, and gun it. Then they smack right into the driver headed the other way who decided s/he could just make the yellow.

I'm shocked!

[jtownatpunk.net]

SHOCKED! SHOCKED!

I'm sure that cutting the yellow light times didn't help.

Rejected in Ohio!

[camg188]

The state of Ohio is passing legislation that will effectively ban automatic traffic light and speed cameras by requiring that a live police office issues the ticket.

Re:Rejected in Ohio!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the Ohio with the Republican Governor and the Republican dominated legislature? Good to know.

Ordinarily the left-of-centers around here have no trouble making the connection between higher government revenue and greater public safety. All they're doing in Chicago is providing themselves the means to fund their Government [1] by punishing law breakers. Beyond that they are discouraging the use of climate wrecking automobiles. Seems like a win all the way around.

Anyhow, if you really want to kill off these cameras in Chicago the answer is obvious; attribute the operation of the cameras to racism. Work up the charts and graphs that "prove" the fines are disproportionately on blacks, expose camera contractors as a parade of whitees and Sharpton will have the matter sorted in no time.

Anyhow Chicago, enjoy your statist hell. You deserve it.

[1] no sunshine, the half billion from the story is net to the city; the contractors aren't stealing it all.

San Diego

[ShakaUVM]

I live in San Diego, some of the time, and similar results were posted here, too. The increase in rear-end collisions from people slamming on the brakes negates any benefit from reduced T-bones.

San Diego also reduced yellow light times, sometimes to below the legal limit, in order to boost revenue.

A judge looked at the program in 2001, said, "That's bullshit", and banned it for a year, and then the government finally ended it on its own in 2013.

Re:San Diego

[thegarbz]

Or you could simply increase the penalties for tailgating and solve both the rear-ending and t-boning at the same time.

Rear-ending is not a symptom if red light cameras, it's a symptom of idiot drivers not following the road rules and not leaving enough space to stop from the person in front.

Re:San Diego

[John.Banister]

I was thinking about a product for that. With front and rear facing cameras accompanied by IR laser rangefinders, GPS and a data connection, one could have a button that causes this system to automatically send evidence of annoying violations from fellow motorists to the relevant police department. When I'm driving on the freeway, following at a safe distance and some (the stereotype that has developed in my mind is an SUV driving parent) other motorist decides to shoehorn their vehicle into that gap, I sometimes feel motivated to drive aggressively in response. I think a "don't get mad, get even" device that sends video of the preceding 40 seconds accompanied by location, speed, and rangefinder information to the appropriate police department might be a much better response. A similar setup in the rear could handle tailgaters. Additionally, the equipment could show me my own following distance in terms of both distance and time at my current speed, which information would be a useful reminder for me to keep my own driving correct.

Re:San Diego

[kencurry]

We still have them in North County. Vista is notorious for them, especially around the courthouse on Melrose.

Re:San Diego

[thegarbz]

Except there's nothing illegal about merging into traffic as long as you don't tailgate. Rather than "don't get mad get even", how about "don't get mad, use common sense".

I'm travelling at 100km/h on a freeway. A car has pulled in front which causes me to have to drop back by some 15m (safety distance for car in front + length of car). I will now reach my destination 1.85 seconds later than I would have if that car weren't there.

People who get mad about such minute things don't need a "get even" device. They need therapy.

Re:San Diego

[Uberbah]

Being a self-righteous wanker might give you warm fuzzies, but it does nothing to change the fact that a system that encourages drivers to suddenly stand on their breaks is a shitty system. One that has been proven to cause more rear-end collisions, your self-righteous wankery notwithstanding.

Re:San Diego

[thegarbz]

There's nothing self-righteous about following the laws that are designed to protect your lives and the lives of the people in the vehicle in front of you.

If you fell otherwise feel free to go Darwin yourself into the back of a truck which suddenly breaks to avoid a collision. At least we'd have one less dickhead who thinks they own the road and that laws don't apply to them behind the wheel.

Re:San Diego

[John.Banister]

Bullshit. When a car changes lanes, they need to do so in a manner that leaves a safe distance both in front of and behind of them. It's illegal to do otherwise.

Re:San Diego

[david_thornley]

It may be impossible to find an adequate gap. It frequently is for me when I'm going to the doctor and have to merge two lanes to the right in busy traffic. Given that, do I merge into the best gap I can find, or continue down the road and hope I can get off sometime?

Red Light Cameras

[DaMattster]

Arguably, they make things even less safe. I've been blinded by the camera's flash at night.

Re:Red Light Cameras

[Jack Griffin]

Where is this? Our cameras are all infrared, no visible flash needed. Prior to this it was a requirement that all flashes were positioned facing the rear of any potential targets.

Chicago: Bankruptcy Soon

[The New Guy 2.0]

You can't do this Chicago... you can't break a federal law to issue tickets in the invalid yellow light zone. What went wrong? Why are you money grubbing? Maybe its time to move the CMX!

Re:Safety?

[The New Guy 2.0]

Yep... they replaced the running a red light problem with sudden stops and rear end incidents. No safety improvement, just a better chance of issuing fines. Seems like this kind of ticket deserves some SCotUS rulings.

Is this a bad thing?

[Hognoxious]

right angle crash incidents have been reduced, rear-end crashes that resulted in injuries went up 22 percent.

Most cars I've driven have a lot more space behind me & in front than they do to either side.

If I you could, where would you choose to get hit?

Re:Is this a bad thing?

[bsolar]

Why the false dichotomy? You can have a reduction in both kinds of incidents simply by having the correct yellow light duration. 3 seconds is even too short unless we're talking about a very low speed residential road: normal roads should have around 5 seconds yellow duration to accommodate for reaction time and stop distance with normal braking force.

If they really wanted to make money ...

[BarbaraHudson]

If they really wanted to make money, they should have put the Red Light Cameras in the Red Light District.

School speedzone cameras too

[SternisheFan]

At the start of this year Long Island's Nassau county installed school speed zone cameras. Doing 22 mph in a 20 meant a ticket. All the claims by the politicians about "think of the children's safety" was bullshit. Most areas that they were installed in had no history of accidents involving schoolkids. The main reason was the millions in revenue they were licking their chops over. The local public went ballistic (some people were receiving multiple $80 tickets in a short span of time), and there were many demonstrations against them that was aired on the local news station. Promises of larger signs, flashing lights when active were made (people were being ticketed at times when schools were closed and even on weekends). Finally now they're all being taken down, most tickets were negated and refunded, and all the cost to install and remove them are costing local taxpayers. Neighboring Suffolk County announced that they won't be going ahead next year with a similar program, mainly due to all the negative public reaction.

Tailgaters cause rear end crashes

[fustakrakich]

I don't care if you hit a brick wall. if you get rear ended, the guy was too close to begin with. That's what the insurance companies say, and I agree.

Re:Tailgaters cause rear end crashes

[fustakrakich]

Nope, the tailgater is always wrong, without exception. You keep a safe distance and you won't hit anything, simple law of physics. I do have the right to avoid blowing the light. If you rear end me, screw you. You were too damn close or driving too fast! I am not responsible for the people behind me in any way. I always do my best to allow them to pass if they are so inclined. You don't have to like it. Just accept it and move along.

Re:Tailgaters cause rear end crashes

[Uberbah]

Nope, the tailgater is always wrong, without exception

Nope, that's conflating "unable to come to a complete stop if the driver in front stands on his brakes for some BS reason" with tailgating. As someone said upthread, getting all self-righteous at other drivers might give you warm fuzzies, but it doesn't change the fact that shitty traffic engineering is shitty traffic engineering.

Re:Tailgaters cause rear end crashes

[havana9]

Yeah, go fo it. The tailgater is always worng, and you're right. But all of your rightness does nothing if you're dead. You don't have to like it. Just accept it and move along.

Re:Tailgaters cause rear end crashes

[fustakrakich]

Just keep your distance and all will be well.

Re:Tailgaters cause rear end crashes

[fustakrakich]

Yes, we all know that the graveyards are full of people who had the right of way.

Re:Tailgaters cause rear end crashes

[ebvwfbw]

Just keep your distance and all will be well.

At the risk of being called Captain Obvious - you don't drive much, do you? I've been driving for decades and most of the time it's in rush hour traffic. As a lot of driver ed video presentations have expressed over the years, you can't get a safe distance. If a space opens up, someone will take it. Only when I drive the Caddy or the Mercedes do I tend to get more space. If I drive the Chevy or the Ford, they're right on my bumper. Even so, about two years ago a young woman hit me in my 2001 Caddy so hard she pushed me into the car in front of me and I was in a full size Caddy. Her car of course was totally destroyed. I walked away without even so much as a scratch. The caddy having well over 250,000 miles on it of course was totalled as well. I still drove it home, no problem. Traffic stopped abruptly and I wondered if I'd hit the car in front of me. Then I realized I was fine... and Wham! This was just prior to a red light camera intersection. I think it was clear that camera caused the accident. She was wearing a seat belt and had air bags, though still ended up in the hospital.
BTW, I've never had a red light camera ticket. I did get an old fashioned cop ticket for running a red light in Washington DC. My ass was still sticking into the intersection enough to get a ticket. They had us lined up on the side. Same thing.

Re:Tailgaters cause rear end crashes

[fustakrakich]

I drive enough to know that keeping proper distance has always kept me out of trouble. If you rear end somebody, you were too close. It's a simple rule of physics that cannot be argued logically and sensibly.(I can cut you a small bit of slack for an unforeseen spot of oil on the road). Tailgating is simply a mild form of road rage and 'me first', and those trying to rationalize it should lose their license. I even leave space at the light. The motorcyclists and pedestrians especially appreciate that simple courtesy. And I watch the road in front of me, not the rear view mirror, it's a bigger distraction than the radio.

The camera did not cause your accident, the person behind you did. She was going too fast, too close. The camera and the traffic in front of her caused nothing. If you pay attention and keep your distance you won't hit anything.

Nothing beats poor driving.

[wvmarle]

Rear-ending means not keeping enough distance with the car in front of you. It's that simple. Plus of course keeping your eyes on the road and concentrating on the task ahead.

Running a red light causes accidents, again poor driving skills. Yes I know the argument "to improve ticket revenue, yellow is shortened" - that argument fails for the period BEFORE the red light cameras are installed, i.e. the time that running red lights was rampant causing numerous accidents, which these red light cameras actually have reduced according to this very article.

As long as people don't understand basic road rules and safety, these accidents will continue to happen. As long as people try to shave seconds of their commute by pushing, speeding and running red lights (instead of stopping when it's yellow), accidents will continue to happen.

Nothing beats poor driving.

Re:Nothing beats poor driving.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Nothing beats poor driving.

Actually good traffic engineering does beat poor driving.
It may not beat it 100% of the time, but nothing in life is ever 100%.
Getting all righteous about bad drivers might give you the warm fuzzies, but it doesn't save lives.
Good traffic engineering does save lives.

Re:Nothing beats poor driving.

[BadgerSauce]

Even if you're a perfect driver, there are many examples where a red light camera can put you in a dangerous situation because others are bad at driving;

Distracted person in front of you is texting, eating, etc. As they are near the intersection, light just turns yellow as they look up, and they don't know its only been yellow for a tenth of a second. They know this intersection has a camera, and decide to slam on the brakes rather than (relatively safely) going thru the beginning of the red light and risk getting a ticket.

You keep a safe distance, and have time to quickly stop without rear ending the car in front of you.

The impatient person behind you sees the light turn yellow and knows they should be able to make it through barely before it turns red, and accelerates a bit to make sure they don't hit the start of the red light.

You've done nothing wrong but get rear ended.

Red light cameras can at least make distracted and impatient drivers more dangerous to you than they would be without the fear of a ticket.

Re:Nothing beats poor driving.

[wvmarle]

You give a perfect example underscoring my original comment: such an accident is a direct result of bad driving.

Red light cameras prevent certain kinds of bad behaviour. Of course police should remain on the alert, and fine people that are texting or otherwise not paying attention to driving as well, in that way preventing another kind of bad behaviour.

Details matter

[overshoot]

The original red-light camera trial was in Scottsdale Arizona. The city farmed out the study to a university research group, and the cameras were installed at a random selection of the worst red-light-accident [1] intersections. The trial was publicized and ran for several years. The timing of the lights was not changed.

The conclusion of the trial was that the cameras reduced both accidents and injuries. Scottsdale then ran the cameras for years with general public approval, in part because the city has some pretty rational traffic ordinances (like raising the speed limit if most people are going faster anyway) and an open set of books on the program.

The cities that treat red-light violations as a revenue source and especially those that cut yellow times to increase red violations have only themselves to blame for poisoning public opinion. If anything, cameras should be paired with longer yellow times.

Scottsdale is strange that way. They also did studies that showed that traffic flows better and reduces accidents by having left turn after green rather than before. Those results have been mostly ignored by other cities.

PS: I've seen some of the footage from the cameras, by the way -- one truly amazing one of a guy who totally spaced and drove right through an intersection well after cross-traffic was flowing but amazingly managed to miss all of it. Hard to believe.

[1] Skip the joke. It's ancient.

meh

[sjwt]

Do the ppl who write this shit have any idea of the difference in those two types of crashes?

Its like saying 'Loss of limbs was down 15%, but bruising is up 18%",
Being T Boned is fucking horrific, I've seen it happen twice, both times I was fucking surprised we didn't have ppl die, I've seen maybe 30 Tail to nose crashes at lights, worst one i was surprised that someone *was* injured.

Your reasoning is:

[FatLittleMonkey]

People have been trying to make driving safer.

Driving is now safer.

Laws to make driving safer were therefore hysterical and stupid.

Re:Your reasoning is:

[Ol Olsoc]

People have been trying to make driving safer.

Driving is now safer.

Laws to make driving safer were therefore hysterical and stupid.

Nah, it's just that there needs to be a limit. MADD largely succeeded in their goal So far so good. Then they just switched to abolition. If we lowered the upper speed limit to 15 miles per hour, and made everyone wear helmets and 5 point seat belts there would be very few accidents, and we'd all be safer. But that pretty much is overreach.

Technological improvements had nothing to do with

[zerofoo]

ABS, crumple zones, airbags, traction control, and high-strength steel had far more to do with reducing highway fatalities than lawmakers could ever hope to achieve.

Just like speed traps

[swb]

They always seem to put speed traps where it's easy to catch speeders versus where speed control would improve safety, such as places with high levels of speed related accidents.

The latter are often difficult to place speed traps or don't offer good cover for squad cars and the former are often places where it's easy to go faster or where the speed limits are artificially low.

no

[Lehk228]

no. but they work fine to collect revenue under color of safety

ridiculously bad summary

[clovis]

"[W]hile right angle crash incidents have been reduced, rear-end crashes that resulted in injuries went up 22 percent." Chicago officials recently claimed that the cameras led to a 47% reduction "T-bone" injury crashes, using that statistic as evidence that the program is worthwhile. But the study's authors, who "accounted for declining accident rates in recent years as well as other confounding factors, found cameras reduced right-angle crashes that caused injuries by just 15 percent."

So the article says rear-end went up 22% and T-bone went down 47%. You have to be suspicious whenever you see a news article that says x went down by y%.
per cent of what? What were the base numbers?

Here's some example situations to show why I say that.

suppose before red light camera we had 100 rear-end crashes and 10,000 t-bone crashes at the intersection (all with injuries)
suppose after red light, we have 122 rear-end crashes and 5,300 t-bone crashes. That's 22% rear-end up and 47% t-bone down
But, the total number of injuries dropped 4,678. That's good isn't it? Redlight cameras must be great!

Or, suppose this:
before red-light camera, 10,000 rear-end and 100 t-bone w/injury
after red-light camera: 12,200 rear-end and 53 t-bone w/injury again, 22% increase in rear-end and 46% decrease in t-bone.
so we had an increase of 2,153 injuries total. Oh my, red-light cameras are killers, aren't they?

I used a wide disparity in the numbers to make my point: you cannot make a useful comparison between percent changes in numbers of two different measurements without knowing the base numbers. That is covered in your freshman "Lying with Statistics 101" class.

So, I read the article in the Tribune (it's free if you give them your email address and live out-of-zone)
If you read the Tribune article (and the accompanied "How the Red Light Camera Study was Done" you may come away with a quite different view than the slashdot summary or the ArsTechnica summary. The Tribune article is not as ridiculous as the slashdot summary.

The article does indeed have some raw numbers:
Quoted from the Tribune:
"In raw numbers at the 90 intersections included in the study, the researchers concluded the cameras prevented as many as 76 right-angle crashes and caused about 54 more rear-end injury crashes. The study said that without the red light cameras about 501 angle crashes would have occurred and only 425 were reported. It also said that there were 296 rear-end injury crashes, and there would have been only 242 had the cameras never been installed."

I've been driving for a few decades and have seen many serious injuries and fatalities, but not a single serious injury or corpse in a rear-end crash.
If you give me a choice between trading 76 t-bones crashes for 54 rear-end crashes, I'd take those numbers. As many other posters have observed, t-bone crashes are much more likely to result in serious injuries and deaths than rear-enders.

The two Tribune articles also covers some of the crookedness associated with Chicago's use of the cameras. They are both a good read and covers a lot of why you should be careful about these numbers and problems associated with the data.

Re:ridiculously bad summary

[kencurry]

I've been driving for a few decades and have seen many serious injuries and fatalities, but not a single serious injury or corpse in a rear-end crash...

You've never driven in heavy stop-n-go traffic on the freeway in SoCal then. I have seen cars so smashed you could not tell what the make or model of the vehicle was; sadly I saw a fatality just this summer, a mother and her kids on I-5; people just don't realize that drivers will slow and change lanes to take the exit at Camp Pendleton Traffic will back up there all the way up to the freeway lane.

Not sure why you want to believe that a rear-end accident is nothing to worry about.

Re:ridiculously bad summary

[clovis]

I've been driving for a few decades and have seen many serious injuries and fatalities, but not a single serious injury or corpse in a rear-end crash...

You've never driven in heavy stop-n-go traffic on the freeway in SoCal then. I have seen cars so smashed you could not tell what the make or model of the vehicle was; sadly I saw a fatality just this summer, a mother and her kids on I-5; people just don't realize that drivers will slow and change lanes to take the exit at Camp Pendleton Traffic will back up there all the way up to the freeway lane.

Not sure why you want to believe that a rear-end accident is nothing to worry about.

Good point - I didn't mean to suggest that rear end crashes are nothing to worry about - Indeed they can be serious. Whiplash is the cause of thousands of paralyzed people every year. I was only pointing out the relative frequency of serious injury in my experience comparing rear-enders to t-bones.

FWIW, I have driven SoCal traffic and it does indeed sux. My previous employer put me in a West Covina motel to commute almost into L.A. for 1-2 months every year for many years.
I commuted across Atlanta for several years as well. Comparing the two, I find that Atlanta has a much higher level of ass-holeitude on the Interstates than L.A area, but, and I can't say why, I think the Valley's traffic is more unpleasant. Maybe I'm comparing a-holes to morons.

Re:ridiculously bad summary

[Toshito]

I've been driving for a few decades and have seen many serious injuries and fatalities, but not a single serious injury or corpse in a rear-end crash.

Except when you're on a motorcycle, then you're screwed. That's why I NEVER stop on a yellow when I'm on my bike, I much prefer to get a ticket than to be mowed down by the teenage girl texting while driving her father's SUV.

Screw Paywalls!

[Anonymous Coward]

Found an openly browseable copy of it in the net.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/...

By David Kidwell and Alex Richards
Chicago Tribune

Chicago's red light cameras fail to deliver the dramatic safety benefits long claimed by City Hall, according to a first-ever scientific study that found the nation's largest camera program is responsible for increasing some types of injury crashes while decreasing others.

The state-of-the-art study commissioned by the Tribune concluded the cameras do not reduce injury-related crashes overall — undercutting Mayor Rahm Emanuel's primary defense of a program beset by mismanagement, malfunction and a $2 million bribery scandal.

Emanuel has credited the cameras for a 47 percent reduction in dangerous right-angle, or "T-bone," crashes. But the Tribune study, which accounted for declining accident rates in recent years as well as other confounding factors, found cameras reduced right-angle crashes that caused injuries by just 15 percent.

At the same time, the study calculated a corresponding 22 percent increase in rear-end crashes that caused injuries, illustrating a trade-off between the cameras' costs and benefits.

The researchers also determined there is no safety benefit from cameras installed at intersections where there have been few crashes with injuries. Such accidents actually increased at those intersections after cameras went in, the study found, though the small number of crashes makes it difficult to determine whether the cameras were to blame.

The finding raises questions about why the city installed cameras in so many places where injury-causing crashes were rare — nearly 40 percent of the 190 intersections that had cameras through 2012, the Tribune found.

"The biggest takeaway is that overall (the program) seems to have had little effect," said Dominique Lord, an associate professor at Texas A&M University's Zachry Department of Civil Engineering who led the Tribune's study.

"So the question now is: If we eliminate a certain type of collision and increase the other and overall it stays the same, is there an argument that it is fair to go with the program?" Lord said. "That is a question that I cannot answer.

Emanuel declined interview requests. His top transportation experts acknowledged flaws in the city's statistics but said the Tribune study reinforces their own conclusion that cameras are helping.

Chicago Transportation Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld said the city has never attempted a deep examination of the effectiveness of the largest automated enforcement program in the country, which has grown to more than 350 red light cameras and raised more than $500 million in $100 tickets since 2002. She said the Emanuel administration, now in its fourth year, is attempting to fix a long-standing lack of oversight.

"So certainly, the study presents an interesting argument, something that we will be considering moving forward," Scheinfeld said. "But the fact is, the important thing I want to make sure that we get across here is that there are less deaths out there, there are less injuries out there and we are very encouraged by that."

Several national traffic experts consulted by the Tribune called the study a valid examination that largely mirrors the results of similar scientific efforts conducted around the country that found moderate decreases in T-bone crashes coupled with increases in rear-enders as drivers hit the brakes to avoid camera-generated tickets.

The study findings also dovetail with the Tribune's examination of how short yellow light times at Chicago's traffic signals raise the stakes for drivers.

Prompted by Tribune reporting, Emanuel officials recently admitted to the city inspector general that they had quietly dropped the threshold for what constitutes a red light camera ticket, allowing the tickets even when cameras showe

Re:Technological improvements had nothing to do wi

[rockout]

Lawmakers were the ones mandating ABS, crumple zones, airbags, traction control, and seat belts. To a degree.

"summaries" is not a verb

[VerdantHue]

I'm not usually a grammar Nazi, but that was the third word of the summary and it made me want to puke, so...

Re:Safety?

[davydagger]

its basicly a tax, mostly on the poor, and anyone who can't fight the tickets in court. Its a tax without raising taxes, what the cities should do.

Not for safety

[Vlijmen Fileer]

I thought traffic lights were for improving traffic /flow/, not safety. Who thought up they were for improving safety?

Cover Up

[JimSadler]

Since so many cities are in financial crises these days the income from red light cams to some degree pays for more cops on the beat and that does enhance public safety. However I doubt that it is efficient and it absolutely is unfair to drivers who often are caught in an intersection in urban traffic. The guy in front of you stops suddenly and you can't clear the intersection until after the light turns red is one example. What the public can do is to insist on a full trial for every infraction and that is expensive enough to force the courts to be a lot kinder to drivers. Inflation is a similar issue. If the public simply refuses to pay higher prices the prices drop. Inflation is a form of taxation and it is of the compound interest model that effectively removes your savings from your bank accounts.

Re:Cover Up

[Monoman]

How long until the insurance industry decides to sue cities shortening yellow light times?

Re:Technological improvements had nothing to do wi

[Jack Griffin]

And most importantly, better designed roads. There is a reason we have black spots, and it's not because driver behaviour suddenly changes...

Not so much

[rsilvergun]

his insurance isn't likely to pay you for the full value of your car. As someone who's been rear ended twice in my life I've never once gotten the real market value of my car from an insurance company...

I think the problem is

[rsilvergun]

you can't install properly configured red light cameras. As soon as you do people start either a) driving around them or b) stop running red lights. They seem to work too well, and then the revenue drops like a rock. Whatever else we want debate about how effective they are they're there to generate money for cash strapped cities not allowed to raise taxes; Safety may or may not be a byproduct, but one thing is sure: less light running at the intersections their put into is. And sooner or later to keep profits up they have to game the cameras to give out more tickets...

And you're right, fixing safety is really, really simple. Just run a yellow for a few extra seconds to make sure the intersection is clear. It costs nothing, but it also doesn't generate any revenue.

Re:I think the problem is

[el_chicano]

cash strapped cities not allowed to raise taxes

In the US most political subdivisions are allowed to raise taxes, the problem is that they choose not to.

New Jersey

[the eric conspiracy]

Ended their red light program test this week. I guess having these run at the state level means less conflict of interest.

wow

[Osgeld]

no shit, welcome to a decade ago

Less fatalities?

[zmooc]

Earlier studies consistently showed red light cameras resulted in less fatalities. And thus more injuries. I'm not convinced.

Furthermore, in rear-end collisions both parties are somewhat guilty. In T-bone crashes, typically only the one running the red light was clearly guilty. Therefore red light cameras result in a distribution of injuries that's fairer.

Easier way to stop wrecks

[jjhues7676]

Here in Indiana, in the city live in the lights have a one second delay from the cross traffic's red to the next green. And nobody gets a ticket.

Re:Easier way to stop wrecks

[Phreakiture]

This works until the city council sees the potential revenue strem form red light cameras. Then the cameras come, and the revenue stream doesn't materialize. Then they start ratcheting down the yellow-light hang time. Then away goes the delay you are talking about (which we have here in New York as well, except for very old lights at some intersections) and then you have a red-light trap.

The City of Albany, NY has just decided to put in red light cameras and then wrote up the budget based on the anticipated revenue. I have to drive through Albany to get to work, and I am grateful that I'm on the highway and not in the clusterfuck that this will very quickly become.

Re: Technological improvements had nothing to do w

[Uberbah]

For the .005% of the population buying certain models of Mercedes, which did jack for the 99.995% of the driving public that did not have those vehicles. Don't be willfully obtuse.

Re:Safety?

[Uberbah]

Because I'm not getting the connection between driving safely and taxing the poor via red light cameras.

Because you're being willfully obtuse.

OT Question

[BarbaraHudson]

Is is possible you're in my neck of the woods? I'm in the West Island (DDO)

Re:Safety?

[davydagger]

You're making the basic assumption that cameras are set up, and maintained in good faith, when they are not. Cameras are set up to make the town money, and accordingly. Cameras are set up to make money for the town, by taking it from the people. They do not make people safer.

1. Short yellows, the town decreases the amount of time the light is yellow in order to get more people to run the light. This makes intersections more dangerous, but the goal isn't saftey, its money
2. The towns also mistime the cameras, so you can be ticketed for running a light when you either went through on a yellow, or stopped
3. You can also be ticketed for technical violations such as being an inch over the line, where no cop would ever cite anyone.

This hurts the poor for two reasons: 1. Its a regressive tax, used to pay for services, that the town imposses instead of real taxes. Paying taxes carries no penalties and can be reasseted based on demands of the society.
2. The poor have less money for lawyers to fight the tickets, and violations wind up as points, which increase car insurance rates, and have a harder time paying the tickets, most of which are bullet.

The whole saftey issue is fairly bullshit, because there never has been an issue with drivers running red lights in this country. Redlight cameras are highway robbery, and the poor are hit hardest.

Re:How else would the camera companies make money?

[neminem]

One: they frequently set it so that people who drive through the intersection on yellow because they "can't stop safely" sometimes get tickets, because they've set it for maximum profit rather than for maximum safety.

Two: they sometimes set it so that people who are "turning left and haven't been able to make it through beforehand" also sometimes get tickets, because again, maximum profit.

It is *exactly* the same people bitching about speed limits, for the same reason. Nobody is arguing that there should be no speed limits ever. What we argue is that, if you have a road where it's safe to drive 50, and everyone drives 50, the city shouldn't make the speed limit arbitrarily 25 so they can ticket people driving safely; they should make the speed limit 50, so they only ticket people who are *actually* driving like an "irresponsible jackass".

Incompatible Motivations

[tingentleman]

One cannot be shortening yellow light times at the same time as claiming cameras are there to improve public safety.

Proof by assertion?

[Two99Point80]

Furthermore, in rear-end collisions both parties are somewhat guilty.

Your reasoning to reach this conclusion?

Re:Proof by assertion?

[zmooc]

The party crashing into the rear was tailgating (or not paying attention). The party slamming the brakes apparently either failed to notice that someone was tailgating or chose to ignore it. Compare this to situations where one party runs the red light; in this situation the other party is completely innocent and did not have and serious option to prevent the crash.