Florida DOT Cuts Yellow Light Delay Ignoring Federal Guidelines, Citations Soar 507
New submitter zlives writes in with news that Florida's DOT changed some language in their yellow light timing regulations, leading to a decrease in the yellow delay. Especially at lights with red light cameras. "From the article: 'Red light cameras generated more than $100 million in revenue last year in approximately 70 Florida communities, with 52.5 percent of the revenue going to the state. The rest is divided by cities, counties, and the camera companies. In 2013, the cameras are on pace to generate $120 million.' I wonder what the camera company cut is?"
At least one area has promised to undo the reduction now that they have been caught.
San Diego (Score:5, Interesting)
San Diego (and several surrounding communities) recently discontinued it's red-light camera program, citing inflated fines to motorists with minimal payouts to the city, and and *increased* accident rate after installations of the cameras.
We also had the short-yellow problem several years ago when they were first installed, which was quicky fixed after public outcry.
Our new mayor is a jerk. But in this case, at least he is being a jerk to folks that deserve it.
Re:Citations? They need to be sued heavily (Score:5, Interesting)
This pisses me off so much. Research studies have shown that increasing amber delays is one of the best ways to reduce both fatal and non-fatal collisions at intersections.
These municipalities think that more red light camera revenue = more money = great and glorious government. They forget two things:
- Fines, cost of repairs, and insurance premiums eat away at their citizens' bank accounts. Less money = less spending = less sales taxes, and a lot of angry, pissed off citizens.
- It's not a zero-sum game within the closed system of citizens and the government. The vendors get a lot of those fines.
So the net result is a slower economy, tax revenue is not nearly as high as expected, and vendors line their pockets.
(I recently worked for years in the highway safety sector, and one of my colleagues, a former cop, did a research paper on this subject. He started the research with a high opinion of red light cameras, but found that red light cameras had no significant effect on fatalities while significantly increasing non-fatal collisions.)
Government killing people for money. (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked as a traffic accident investigator for a few years. Part of my job was figuring out the timing of traffic lights and if they were the cause of an accident. Shortening yellow lights kills people, old people and big trucks dont stop very fast. This is the Florida government killing people for money.
The really sad part is if they were really clever they would shorten the yellow 1/2 a second but keep the whole intersection red for a 1/2 a second. That way they could rip off Floridians without killing them.
This is why (Score:4, Interesting)
You ALWAYS challenge a ticket. Even if it's a waste of your time and money, it's also a waste of the court's time and money.
If enough people contest their tickets, they might just create a DDoS on the system that causes it to be more expensive for the system than it's worth.
Re:Citations? They need to be sued heavily (Score:5, Interesting)
(I recently worked for years in the highway safety sector, and one of my colleagues, a former cop, did a research paper on this subject. He started the research with a high opinion of red light cameras, but found that red light cameras had no significant effect on fatalities while significantly increasing non-fatal collisions.)
I'll ask you since I'd like to know: I've heard that one of the most positive innovations for traffic lights is the inclusion of a "timer bar". A bar light along side the normal traffic signals indicates how long the single has until it changes. I've heard that the places it was tested vastly reduced the number of collisions and injuries. Is there any truth to that?
The "reason they haven't been implemented" is supposedly because they vastly reduce people running red lights while being significantly more expensive, and so vastly reduce red light camera revenue while raising operating costs. Having worked in a government office, I'm willing to believe that the "more expensive" portion alone was enough to make municipalities avoid them. I'm just curious if there's any truth to it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Citations? They need to be sued heavily (Score:5, Interesting)
In my town, the walk/don't walk signs have a display that counts down the seconds left for the "walk" time. Then the red "don't walk" symbol pops up, and shortly after that the light turns yellow.
It's extremely helpful -- if I'm half a block away and the sign says 12 seconds left, I know I'm going to get through the light on green. If I see 2 seconds left, I know it'll be red and there's no point in doing anything other than coasting.
The signs we have look sort of like this (but without the glasses looking symbol on top): http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/ped_bike/tools_solve/ped_scdproj/webinar052809/las_vegas/images/image081.jpg [dot.gov]
Re:Lather, rinse, rage (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually get rid of the ripples in traffic. Instead of racing to the red light, I time my speed so the the light is clear just as I get to it. Traffic in front of me is rippled and smooth behind me.
Re:Citations? They need to be sued heavily (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing that would be cheap and effective in my mind would be to take the yellow time multiplied by the speed limit, and paint a line on the road that distance away from the light. That would take some of the guesswork out of yellow lights. That is, if you are driving the speed limit and the light turns yellow - if you past the line you can proceed through the intersection, and if you are behind the line you need to stop. No having to make a quick judgment of your speed and your distance from the light and guessing of the length of the yellow. This would have a secondary benefit that once the line is in place, it would make it tougher for them to arbitrarily change the yellow light time because then they would have to send a crew out to repaint the line on the road.