Denver Must Prove Red-Light Cameras Improve Safety 433
An anonymous reader writes "An audit of accidents at Denver intersections where red light cameras were installed versus increasing the length of the yellow light shows little difference in the results. In a case of putting the public ahead of the corporation, the Denver auditor is recommending canceling the red light camera program unless the city can prove a public-safety benefit." I hope that private citizens offering analysis or recommendations are treated fairly.
I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Informative)
...reading some years back that the Red Light camera companies had specific language in the contracts that restricted the length of yellow lights.
A cynical person might think they wanted people running red lights. But I'm not...oh, fuck it. I am cynical.
Re:I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice how no one went to jail for any of that. It's almost as if corruption were permitted in the US.
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Is there any where in the world where it isn't, in practice, permitted.
As long as you aren't caught by the right people, go for it!
Re:I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice how no one went to jail for any of that. It's almost as if corruption were permitted in the US.
Corruption is not permitted in the US. It is encouraged.
Re:I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Insightful)
If a corporation does something there is no way to punish them. A person can go to jail. There is no equal punishment for a corporation. They have all the advantages a person does but none of the downsides.
If a corporation had to stop all business for say 4 months as punishment then you'd start to see ethics in corporations. However this would never happen because no politician wants to deal with the blow back of putting that many people out of work.
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Of course it's fair. You expect to gain when the company does well. Often that success is partly from a corporation flouting the law and getting away with it. Well, a stockholder should be taking both sides of the risk. How else can we expect AGMs to vote for better governance?
Re:I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, heaven forbid we penalize the stock-holders ... oh no, that would be horrible.
Look, if the only way to punish a corporation is to hurt their bottom line, then I'm all for it. Because otherwise companies will just keep doing anything they want with no consequences whatsoever.
If you can't slap a company with a huge fine which hurts their bottom line, what can you do to punish them? A stern talking to won't work.
Why not? That's practically what legal incorporation means ... it's a separate legal entity, which apparently now is a person with free speech, and which limits individual liability.
So except for the most egregious stuff (which is usually financial shenanigans -- again, it's all about the stockholder) there is almost no chance of someone being held criminally responsible for the actions of a corporation.
If a bunch of individuals decide to do something criminal on behalf of the company, you pretty much need to punish the corporation so there is an understanding that they need to play by the rules as well.
In some extreme cases you might be able to hold individuals criminally responsible, but letting the stockholders and the company off without any punishment only encourages them to act like assholes -- something they already do much of the time anyway.
I'm sorry, but if a company decides to use ground, rabid squirrel as an additive to their pepperoni, I fail to see why the corporation shouldn't be penalized; and if that means the stockholders get penalized, well, then they can tell the people who run the company they're not happy.
If you want to get paid for the company successes, you also own a share in their wrongdoings and misfortunes.
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You don't need to settle for fines. The people running the company are still people. Those people, usually called "executives", can be arrested, imprisoned, and executed with a bullet in the head and their body dumped in a ditch. They do it in China, we should do it here.
Re:I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Insightful)
You have no problem with someone ordering a murder? Just the person who actually does it?
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Umm, quite possibly, if one of the companies held by the mutual fund does their risk analysis and finds that probability of death * cost of death profit, then yes, it's basically murder.
But that's not really the point anyway. If you buy into a mutual fund that holds stock for a company that profits from fraud, and you profited from that fraud, you should take part of the hit when (or, more likely, *if*) the fraud is discovered.
--Jeremy
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Re:I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as you're not at the bottom, you're fine. People in general, given the opportunity, would make as much profit as they could from what ever they could, society be damned.
The best that I can put together is that if you're at the top or in charge, you're living the American Dream and we don't want to punish anyone that makes it to that level. But if you're at the bottom you screwed up or God is punishing you so you deserve to be there. We have people making $40k a year cursing at the person making $15k for "stealing their money" and "needing to work harder". But they let the person making $1M a year slide because some day that person making $40k is going to be a part of the $1M and they don't want their money taken away.
The CEO of what had been one of the largest privately held mortgage lenders was sentenced Tuesday to more than three years in prison for his role in a $3 billion scheme that officials called one of the biggest corporate frauds in U.S. history.
The 40-month sentence for Paul R. Allen, 55, is slightly less than the six-year term sought by federal prosecutors.
vs
A homeless man robbed a Louisiana bank and took a $100 bill. After feeling remorseful, he surrendered to police the next day. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
Roy Brown, 54, robbed the Capital One bank in Shreveport, Louisiana in December 2007. He approached the teller with one of his hands under his jacket and told her that it was a robbery.
The teller handed Brown three stacks of bill but he only took a single $100 bill and returned the remaining money back to her. He said that he was homeless and hungry and left the bank.
The next day he surrendered to the police voluntarily and told them that his mother didn’t raise him that way.
Brown told the police he needed the money to stay at the detox center and had no other place to stay and was hungry.
In Caddo District Court, he pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison for first degree robbery.
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I think it is the armed part that draws the large year factor in sentencing.
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If it's everywhere, I guess it's just fine that it's permitted in the US.
Do people really think like this? What's wrong with them?
Re:I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Insightful)
What's wrong is that they live in hope that one day, somehow, they'll cross the line and be on that gravy train full of free money.
In America it's called "The American Dream". It's why things like the outrage against wall street and the bankers is a few people in tents when it should really have far more pitchforks, lynchings and burning mansions.
Re:I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Insightful)
In Uhmurrica we live the Ferengi Dream.
"You don't understand. Ferengi workers don't want to stop the exploitation, we want to find a way to become the exploiters." - Rom
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Come now, let's attend to the plank in our own eye first.
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Not all. we're just the most hypocritical.
Re:I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Informative)
Cities ABSOLUTELY cheat on yellow light timing - and they always will be because after they sign the contracts, they realize just how much money they HAVE to bring in just to pay the minimum monthly fees to the camera companies.
Case in point: In Paradise Valley, Arizona, they were caught red-handed by anti-camera activists intentionally shortening yellow lights [wordpress.com] going less than four seconds, which was a threshold they were never supposed to go under. The city claimed they weren't doing it, until this youtube video [youtube.com] proved they were cheating at photo radar intersections.
After being caught red-handed, the city quietly and quickly - the very next day, in fact - changed the timing to match that minimum threshold.
In downtown Chandler, AZ, there was another well-known intersection with cameras with a shorter yellow time than the others, and it led to a majority of ALL of its camera "revenue".
Bottom line: There are a ton of revenue-desperate city councils out there full of dopes who aren't clever enough to see what the snake oil salesmen from camera companies are selling: "sin tax safety" AND revenue to boot, with a huge gotchas attached. It's going to take years to flush the system of these safety-neutral, revenue positive cameras.
BTW - Everyone should take notice that Los Angeles hasn't burned to the ground after turning off their cameras. It's safe to say that if LA can live without cameras, Denver (and any other major city in the United States) would probably avoid their own "carmageddon" as well...
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Take all funds generated from the cameras, and pool them. Give back at the end of the year (plus any interest generated) to all the citizens that didn't get caught, and take all the $$ out of the hands of the officials.
If you take the money out of it, I dare say...city officials and police will immediately drop their high interest in such tools.
The safety aspect of these things is secondary to the revenue they generate. Hell, when the light camer
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There are many remedies for a problem intersection. Can change lanes, signs, and the order of operation. And of course, the timing. Red light cameras should be the last resort, undertaken only after all other measures have failed. Instead, they are often deliberately implemented first, for revenue. Let's not fix the bad timing, let's instead make money off it! Maybe we should implement a red light toll system. To shorten that red, just wave your toll tag at a handy nearby sensor. Whichever direction
Speed limits & speed enforcement (Score:3)
I seem to remember something in driver's ed about Speed Limits being advisory -- they were primarily supposed to inform you of the maximum safe speed for the road which was also the maximum legal speed. But, it wasn't a right, as there was a "basic speed law" that said that the punishable speed limit could actually be lower, depending on driving conditions.
My problem with speed enforcement is that it's not generally automated -- the police setup speed "traps" where people are known to exceed the speed limi
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How about this [bellinghamherald.com]? A real-world study, running for several months, ended up in the city council ditching most red light cameras because "the data that was collected showed that there was not a significant or discernible change in the safety of the three intersections we were using to program it", and also "there were three more crashes at the intersections with red-light cameras in the first six months of the year .. two were rear-end crashes ... they stopped short of the light because they indicated they didn
Re:I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Insightful)
If braking didn't involve inertia and human reaction time, you'd be right. A light needs to be yellow long enough for the driver to see it, decide if they can safely stop before entering the intersection, and then do so. If the yellow is shorter than that, even a perfect driver will inevitably "run the red" from time to time. Shorten it enough and even an automated driver with perfect reaction would run the light from time to time based solely on statistics and the laws of physics.
Consider a 1 microsecond yellow and it flickers when you are 1 foot from the line doing 45 MPH.
This is well understood by traffic engineers and so there are guidelines for the minimum safe length of a yellow. Cities with red light cameras almost always end up with yellows shorter than that.
The MUTCD and ITE (Score:5, Informative)
specifies that the duration of the yellow change interval should be between 3 and 6 seconds. And people have won court cases over red light tickets over the yellow time being too short.
http://www.ite.org/decade/pubs/IR-117-E.pdf [ite.org]
http://www.ite.org/safety/issuebriefs/Traffic%20Signals%20Issue%20Brief.pdf [ite.org]
http://www.ite.org/annualmeeting/compendium10/pdf/AB10H2601.pdf [ite.org]
Re:The MUTCD and ITE (Score:5, Informative)
Also worth reading this - Oregon DOT Recommendations: http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/TRAFFIC-ROADWAY/docs/pdf/ODOT_yellow_red_clear_policy_A1.pdf?ga=t
The 3 to 6 recommendation is based on some general assumptions and characteristics. It's still a mathematical equation. Also, here's a few c/p from the parent's references that are relevant (including the statement that yellow duration is commonly limited by control manufacturers and the shortfall is made up during a red phase):
The calculation requires values for perception/reaction time of the driver, deceleration rate for stopping vehicle, vehicle speed, approach grade (uphill, downhill), intersection width and design vehicle length. The standard value used for the perception and reaction time of drivers approaching a signalized intersection is 1.0 sec.
The Highway Design Handbook for Older Drivers and Pedestrians concludes that the 1.0-sec. reaction time is appropriate for both older and younger drivers, but that the use of a 1.5-sec. reaction time “is well justified when engineering judgment determines a special need to take older drivers’ diminished capabilities into account.”
The MUTCD (Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices) indicates that the yellow change interval should be set within the range of 3 to 6 sec. and many signal controller units will not permit settings outside of this range. If the phase change interval needs to be near the top of this range or beyond, the additional time is sometimes provided as part of a red clearance
interval.
Re:I Seem To Recall (Score:5, Insightful)
An observant person might think they wanted people running red lights.
A realist might think they wanted people running red lights.
Anyone capable of rational thought might think they wanted people running red lights.
Fixed that for you. Take your pick.
Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know here in Canada and in all the places I've been in the US yellows are plenty long.
The issue is assholes entering the intersection to turn left when it isn't clear, people refusing to stop when the light does turn yellow, etc.
I'd actually want to see a very clear causal link between longer yellows and safety increases, because my gut tells me longer yellows would make people ignore them even more.
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:5, Informative)
In many states drivers are taught to enter the intersection to take a left turn, and it's legal.
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Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:4, Informative)
It's also legal in Canada, or at least Ontario. The OP is a moron. You may always enter the intersection to perform a manoeuvre you have a green light for (in fact, the HTA says you can receive a ticket for NOT doing so). Once you are fully in the intersection, if you light turns red because you cannot complete the manoeuvre you are permitted (and required), by the HTA to complete the manoeuvre on red.
Yes, you must wait until the intersection is clear, that is also in the HTA, however, that is much more discretionary than the other directions, since the driver may start their left turn and realize the intersection is not clear before they complete their turn due to a blocked view or a car speeding up, at which point the driver is required to yield the right of way.
Furthermore, while it is horribly annoying when people overstep this and try to squeeze three cars though, it present absolutely no collision risk because the left turn is complete either during the time when the whole intersection is red (yes, the entire intersection is supposed to be red for a moment before the other traffic is allowed to move) or as the other light turns green (in which case they are stopped and notice you in their path so they wait to proceed). The only possible time I can see it being a problem is when a driver decides to speed at a stale red, not paying attention to the intersection, in the hope that the intersection will be clear and the light will magically turn green. That sort of driver was planning to run the red, anyways.
I *have* driven in an area where left turns on red are "illegal" (Philadelphia) and they aren't really illegal as far as I can tell. Instead, the left turn lights turn RED after they give you an opportunity to do a protected left turn. Notice that in the first paragraph I mention the driver must have a green light when they enter...
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:4, Insightful)
The law is that you cannot enter the intersection on a red. If you are already there, you must clear the intersection.
Also... as far as this...
I *have* driven in an area where left turns on red are "illegal" (Philadelphia) and they aren't really illegal as far as I can tell. Instead, the left turn lights turn RED after they give you an opportunity to do a protected left turn. Notice that in the first paragraph I mention the driver must have a green light when they enter...
We have those in Ontario too. I know of several in my city - all are where there are 2 left hand turn lanes. You get an advance, and then a red.
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:5, Informative)
"Oh no, the light is now red, there is intersecting traffic"
no cross traffic should enter the intersection until the way is clear.
Green != Go
Green = precede if clear
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:4, Informative)
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The car making the left turn is stopped in the intersection and not colliding with anyone and the cars behind the white line can not enter the intersection once the light turns red. If traffic congestion proves too bad, the traffic engineer can make the green light longer on the s
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:5, Informative)
There should never be backing up in an intersection unless you think it is the only way to prevent a wreck, or reduce the severity of one. And even then, you better think twice, quickly.
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In most states, the person in the intersection (e.g. you), has the right away over people entering the intersection. Since in some states it is perfectly legal to enter the intersection on yellow, the people proceeding straight in front of your intended route have the right of way. This is of course ignoring how some people enter on yellow when they were perfectly capable of stopping safely. Once traffic finally stops, no one should be entering the intersection from crossing traffic until you are clear of the intersection. If they do, they are violating traffic law just as much as someone running a red light.
AFAIK it's legal in all fifty states to enter an intersection when the light is yellow, just as it's legal nationwide to turn right at a red light after first stopping, unless a right turn on red is clearly posted as prohibited at that intersection. Yellow means "prepare to stop", NOT "stop now", and the rule I recall from driver's ed, lo these many years ago, is "If your entire vehicle is past the stop line when the light turns red, you may legally proceed through the intersection." In some states/localiti
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:5, Informative)
At this point you can either do a really dangerous left turn, or remain blocking the traffic, or try to back up (assuming people havent filled in behind you.
I've driven in a dozen states, all on the east coast of the US. In those states, this is not only permitted, it is the correct thing to do. It is taught that way in driver's education and a traffic cop will direct you to do this as well. When the light turns red, the driver in the intersection completes the left turn. It is not dangerous because there are a few seconds where the light remains red specifically as a time to clear the intersection. The only problem I've ever seen is when bad drivers either stay in the intersection and block it, or back-up - both of which are illegal.
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Entering the intersection makes sense when you can see an opening coming shortly, but if there is a line of traffic entering the intersection to make a left turn is just going to make traffic worse and create a dangerous situation.
In that case, what should someone stopped behind the stop line in a left turn lane do if there is no left turn arrow phase and no opening in the oncoming traffic for the entire green phase? I assume that remaining standing at the stop line for an hour waiting for rush hour to end would be ridiculous.
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That is the point of a yellow as opposed to just having green and red. it is legal to enter the intersection on yellow, whether it's a fresh or stale yellow. It is illegal to enter on red. The reason is when the light changes you may only be 5' from the intersection, or 20', or some other distance where stopping is either not possible or not safe. A sufficiently long yellow (IIRC 1 second for every 10 MPH of traffic speed) virtually eliminates red light runners, a brief overlap of red prevents the occasiona
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:4, Informative)
If you are in the intersection when the light turns red, you have the right of way to clear the intersection before anyone else goes. It's really pretty simple and no cop or red light camera anywhere in the US should give you a ticket for it.
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:5, Informative)
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It's rather intuitive. The people right at the line go on. The people who are close try to make it under the light. The people who have plenty of time figure they are unlikely to make the light and slow down. If I see the yellow and barely have to brake in order to stop by the line, there's no need to push my luck.
You will still have instances of people not paying attention and blowing right through a red light. But giving more people the opportunity to squeeze under just makes sense, if you're most in
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:5, Interesting)
But there seems to be a paradox wherein drivers may become accustom to the longer yellows, diminishing the benefits...
My second link was to a series of studies that show that the benefits do not diminish with time. It is possible that longer yellows may make intersections that do not have the extended yellows even more dangerous. However, the solution to that is to extend those yellows as well. The most decisive study on the issue I saw was one which showed that if the rate of decceleration necessary to come to a complete stop was below 8 feet per second squared, drivers were virtually certain to stop, while if the required decceleration was above 12 feet per second squared, drivers were virtually certain to continue.
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So what we really need are yellow lights of infinite duration.
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Biggest problem I see is the (a) 2 dipshits who are behind the stop line turning left after the red, thereby (b) blocking the advance left turns on the cross street, which leads back to (a) again, etc. Turn the cameras on and ticket those assholes first!
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From the article: City traffic engineer Brian Mitchell said fewer crashes are being recorded at intersections where photo-red-light enforcement has been set up and where yellow-light clearance time has been lengthened.
unclear parsing (Score:3)
either or both?
short yellows difficult during ice storms (Score:3)
What helps a lot is 80% of the light have pedestrian countdowns, which at zero go to yellow. (some states go to red at zero) I can decide to start braking if the countdown is in single digits.
Re:short yellows difficult during ice storms (Score:5, Insightful)
"there's ice on the road and I think I'll drive at 100mph" - only an idiot would say that.
Only drive as fast as the road conditions allow - this is bascially the law in the UK. Don't follow that law; expect to get punished for dangerous driving or driving without due care and attention.
We have speed limits here too. They aren't a target speed. You do not have to drive at the national speed limit, only under it.
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:5, Informative)
I'd actually want to see a very clear causal link between longer yellows and safety increases, because my gut tells me longer yellows would make people ignore them even more.
For the Google-challenged:
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/02/243.asp [thenewspaper.com]
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/28/2887.asp [thenewspaper.com]
You can find more.
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The issue is assholes entering the intersection to turn left when it isn't clear, people refusing to stop when the light does turn yellow, etc.
Former civil engineer here. The italicized "asshole behavior" is legal many places in the US and is an intended result of traffic engineering. In congested intersections without a left hand turn signal, your preference would result in no traffic clearing the left hand turn lane during a traffic control cycle.
In common practice and design, a driver may enter the int
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you're paying attention and following at a safe distance, why are you slamming on your brakes and hitting anything?
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:5, Insightful)
You should never be so close to the car in front of you that this happens. If you are, you absolutely are at fault.
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't fault, it's the consequences of a collision. Even a minor crash can result in injury, and thousands of dollars of damage and medical bills during a recession economy. Even if insurance covers you, your rates may increase.
Now add in the camera fines. Most cities get a small cut of the fines, typically not enough to cover court costs on all the cases that get thrown out.
The camera vendor is the only one to make money in this deal. Profits get larger by convincing the city to decrease yellow times, and by manipulating the cameras to catch people who were behind the line by inches but posed no danger.
The economy suffers in order to make a government vendor rich... is that what we want?
Re:Are yellows in Denver really short? (Score:5, Insightful)
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You're looking at things in terms of who is at fault and what a particular driver should do.
That is a dumb way to think when setting policy. If (and that's actually a big if that branch-prediction tends to get wrong) the goal is to increase public safety and reduce collisions, then you acknowledge that som
Changed my mind (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to think the intersection camera were a good idea. However, I changed my mind once a I listened to a local police chief explain that in his city traffic accidents had actually risen at the intersections where the cameras were in use. Folks would brake suddenly when they saw the camera causing the vehicle behind them to rear-end them. Once he said that I knew he was right. People would do that.
The cameras are a good idea in theory, but the real-world unintended consequences are too costly.
Re:Changed my mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Folks would brake suddenly when they saw the camera causing the vehicle behind them to rear-end them.
Nothing the driver in front of you does should result in you crashing into him. That is why there is a two second rule for following, and laws against tailgating. Ive had someone yell at me because they hit me when I slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a line of cars. Guess what, she lost that battle when they admitted I was in front of them, and she admitted that she only had half a second to respond.
Re:Changed my mind (Score:5, Insightful)
But knowing that drivers do what they do, are you willing to risk a collision (and your safety, along with your passengers' safety) when you see someone is following too closely? Or would you risk the ticket? What if the person behind you is underinsured?
You're right legally. But legality != reality.
Re:Changed my mind (Score:5, Informative)
Was it Washington, DC?
Source [washingtonpost.com]
Re:Changed my mind (Score:5, Informative)
This is not unusual. The Federal Highway Administration found that red-light cameras increase rear-end collisions but reduce more severe right-angle collisions, saving $50,000 in collisions per intersection per year in medical and repair costs. [tfhrc.gov]
Both (Score:5, Interesting)
Long yellows to give everyone a chance to stop, and red light cameras to catch the bastards who don't take that chance.
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Getting a ticket in the mail changed my behavior in intersections. I would be an idiot to run the red light at the same intersection again.
Already done. (Score:2)
Some science has already been done on this subject, and it suggests red light cameras actually increase the rate of accidents. If i remember correctly it was even covered previously on slashdot.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080311151159.htm [sciencedaily.com]
Guess the person(s) / corporation who sold this idea to the decisionmakers were not so keen at looking at what had already been established.
Also, I posted the full link as I don't know how to "linkify" a word, and could not find a guide anywhere. I'm a med
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I counter your study with another study [dot.gov]. This is still a heavily studied topic, and results seem to vary depending on where, who and when the studies happen. The benefits seem to be negligible when compared to a properly designed yellow phase, though.
offtopic: Here's a link [w3schools.com] to a page on w3schools, briefly discussing anchors.
why are some tickets based on NFL style reviews (Score:2)
why are some tickets based on NFL style reviews and people some times get tickets that a REAL cop would not give out?
You want improvement...? (Score:2)
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Start putting timers on the yellow and green lights.
Back when I was a lad there were several sets of traffic lights near where I lived that consisted of a single clock hand spinning around a disk that was segmented into red, yellow and green sections. So the driver always knew how much time was left in each part of the cycle. The only problem with this scheme is that it can't be adapted to changing traffic patterns - unless of course you make the dials out of the same technology as the video billboards.
Cake and eat it too (Score:2)
How about just slow things down a bit and increase the illusion of danger instead of the illusion of safety?*
* http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html [wired.com]
easy to prove (Score:2)
The summary didn't specify "traffic safety", so
1. red light cameras increase revenue (that's their purpose, so if they can't prove that, get rid of them)
2. more revenue means they have to lay off fewer police officers (easy to fudge some books and threaten layoffs to "prove" this)
3. more police officers result in better public safety (use Biden's quote about fewer officers means more rapes and murders)
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The summary didn't specify "traffic safety", so
1. red light cameras increase revenue (that's their purpose, so if they can't prove that, get rid of them)
2. more revenue means they have to lay off fewer police officers (easy to fudge some books and threaten layoffs to "prove" this)
3. more police officers result in better public safety (use Biden's quote about fewer officers means more rapes and murders)
3.5 The Police officers can be used for more "high profit" crimes like arresting drug dealers and users.
Law and Regulation? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a EU citizen I understand americans hate regulations. But would this not be a thing that should be covered by law? I mean ... what the fuck? In your country a city can decide how long the traffic light is yellwo, that sounds pretty retarded to me.
In germany the duration of yellow depends on the speed limit of the affected road.
Re:Law and Regulation? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a EU citizen I understand americans hate regulations. But would this not be a thing that should be covered by law? I mean ... what the fuck? In your country a city can decide how long the traffic light is yellwo
(I know I will probably be modded into oblivion for this) As a foreigner living in the US I know exactly where you are coming from. This place takes parochialism to the extreme. From bottom to top its city vs county vs state vs federal. Everything is focussed on the smallest possible sphere of influence rather than looking at the bigger picture - which creates the situation where traffic laws are controlled (capriciously) by the local community rather than adhering to well thought out standards. Its the whole "we want to be free and do what we want to do without being controlled by someone else" mindset. I'm not going to say that this mindset is always bad, but it does leave you scratching your head over things like locally controlled yellow light times. One of my favourite examples of parochialism is that years ago I saw a letter in the Pittsburgh paper complaining that the team members of the Pittsburgh Steelers were denying the city of Pittsburgh valuable tax dollars by having the temerity to reside in county rather than in the city itself.
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As a EU citizen I understand americans hate regulations. But would this not be a thing that should be covered by law? I mean ... what the fuck? In your country a city can decide how long the traffic light is yellwo
(I know I will probably be modded into oblivion for this) As a foreigner living in the US I know exactly where you are coming from. This place takes parochialism to the extreme. From bottom to top its city vs county vs state vs federal. Everything is focussed on the smallest possible sphere of influence rather than looking at the bigger picture - which creates the situation where traffic laws are controlled (capriciously) by the local community rather than adhering to well thought out standards. Its the whole "we want to be free and do what we want to do without being controlled by someone else" mindset. I'm not going to say that this mindset is always bad, but it does leave you scratching your head over things like locally controlled yellow light times. One of my favourite examples of parochialism is that years ago I saw a letter in the Pittsburgh paper complaining that the team members of the Pittsburgh Steelers were denying the city of Pittsburgh valuable tax dollars by having the temerity to reside in county rather than in the city itself.
While I understand your POV, much of the reason behind the US viewpoint is cultural, just as in the EU. American's dislike of a strong central government (unless it is doing something they support) is rooted in our founding - we gave states rights very specifically and limited federal power; after our experiences with the British crown. As the US expanded across the continent, the distances form the central government widened and local control become the norm. This feeling still exists today.
You still see t
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Bottom Line (Score:2)
Hmm summary editorializing (Score:5, Insightful)
My reading of the stats in the TFA is that the rate front to side impacts have decreased 5 times for read light cameras compared with a rate decrease of less than 2 for yellow light extension. Being T-boned at an intersection by a red light runner is far more dangerous than being rear ended by someone not stopping soon enough because they didn't see the light change. So I'd hardly call the change in accident rates a "little difference". Sure injury reduction has been about the same and front to rear is slightly better for the yellow light extension, but I'd hardly call that conclusive.
It astounds me that in the US red light cameras are so reviled. I am continually scared when facing a green light at an intersection and then having some one drive through the red light from my left to right. These people are trying to kill me. So supporting a system that lets them get away with it is nonsensical.
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I also know of at least one red light camera that was removed specifically becau
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Longer Yellows (Score:2)
I can believe that giving a subset of the lights in one city a longer yellow would reduce accidents, for those particular lights. However, the key question is what happens when you adjust *all* the yellow lights in a city. My experience says that people generally time yellow lights, and try to get away with getting through just as the lights turn red. If they're uniformly longer, people will just keep going for a few more seconds of yellow.
Lengthening yellows encourages bad behavior (Score:4, Insightful)
According to the law*, a yellow light is to be treated as a red light *if* the vehicle can safely stop. Only if you can't safely stop at a yellow are you to proceed.
Naturally, if folks are driving the posted speed limit, it's far easier to stop at a yellow, because stopping distance increases quite a bit when your speed goes from 30 mph to 35 to 40 to 45. We can bicker about speed limits on the interstate all day long, but local road speed limits are much more important to get right, because you've got pedestrians, cyclists, autos pulling in and out of driveways, right on red at intersections, etc. Stopping distance is really important. Do a better job enforcing local speed limits, and you'll find that folks are less likely to drive through a yellow (or "orange") light, improving safety for everyone.
The other part is this. Plenty of folks treat a yellow as green. Always. Lengthen the yellow, and folks get a feel for the longer length... and will continue to just plough through it as if it were green. Once folks re-calibrate, you've got a worse situation, because people will see a yellow and be even more inclined to accelerate.
There's no need to lengthen the yellow. We need to enforce local speed limit laws.
* all vary state to state, but this is generally speaking the case
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You seem to be basing your conclusions on your own intuitions, rather than on statistical data. The auditor mentioned in the summary cites actual observed factual data that correlates longer yellows with fewer accidents.
Reason is fine, but fact is finer.
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"According to the law*, a yellow light is to be treated as a red light *if* the vehicle can safely stop. ... all vary state to state, but this is generally speaking the case"
Is that so? This is what Missouri state law has to say about vehicles facing a yellow light:
Vehicular traffic facing a steady yellow signal is thereby warned that the related green movement is being terminated or that a red indication will be exhibited immediately thereafter when vehicular traffic shall not enter the intersection
That says traffic shall not enter the intersection on red, and yellow is nothing more than a warning that the red light is coming.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article it appears that the number of injuries at the intersection have actually declined since the introduction of the red-light camera. Front-to-side collisions are down and these are caused by the driver running the red light. These collisions are more dangerous than the front-to-rear collision since the vehicle directly enters the passenger area at a potentially higher speed.
Rear-to-front collisions are caused by the driver tailgating and these in general are due to him not being able to stop in time and the collision are at a much lower speed and do not directly enter the passenger compartment. The data provided in the article reenforces this hypothesis since there were 53 injuries prior to the cameras installation and only 18 afterwards. This is despite the gain of 1 front-to-rear accident.
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The article states that extending the yellow light and fining people who run the red lights greatly reduced injuries and a
To Improve Safety at Stop Lights ... (Score:4, Insightful)
While we're at it let's remove what I call "Stupid stoplights", that do nothing but waste gas. How many times have you sat at a red light with NO cross traffic for 30 seconds or more.
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While we're at it let's remove what I call "Stupid stoplights", that do nothing but waste gas. How many times have you sat at a red light with NO cross traffic for 30 seconds or more.
It's called traffic platooning. Basically the system that allows you to hit five or six greens in a row is responsible for the "stupid stoplights" .Unfortunately if you google that phrase you now come across driverless systems that take platooning to the next level.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light_control_and_coordination#Coordinated_control [wikipedia.org]
Here come the quotas.. watch out (Score:4, Interesting)
Inevitably these are the words that will issue from some Superior Officer's mouth each morning so they can "prove" that red light camera improve safety even around the areas they're installed where there are no cameras.
And what follows is destroyed and distorted paperwork, reclassification of incidents, motorists NOT being issued tickets on certain roads, people being "let go" and individuals involved in accidents being encouraged to "work it out between yourselves so it doesn't go on your record".
We KNOW what happens when police are under pressure to produce downward statistics in crime each year, or in this case downward statistics for accidents. Policing becomes less professional and more third-worldy, even criminal.
Some examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3mmuZsHmv8 [youtube.com]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/ex-nypd-cop-we-planted-ev_n_1009754.html/ [huffingtonpost.com]
It's not what the cops want to do, it's what well-intentioned people who think policing should be subject to the same kinds of productivity and performance metrics that other industries are subject to inadvertently cause.
Telling cops they need to produce such and such numbers for this and that reason is a stupid idea who time has never existed in the first place. Telling them they need to prove by stats that the camera improve intersection safety is a big mistake.
The way to work this is to let them do what from their experience they feel will work and have the insurance companies by law turn over their statistics to the government or the universities who then data mines it on an ongoing basis to see what works for traffic safety and what doesn't and what's trending and what isn't.
Don't make the source of the data also the beneficiary of the data when it leans a certain way. Also don't punish them when it leans some other way.
The police don't cause crime so it's not theirs to reduce year over year. Society causes crime, the economy causes crime, bad parenting and poor family environment causes crime, lousy neighborhoods cause crime. Not policing.
The vast majority of police forces do what they can in the best way they've learned how and results are really pretty good in most areas. But the lions share of the credit or blame goes to the population who either is or is not inclined to follow the law in the first place.
Squeezing departments to produce numbers is a sure fire way to have them enact a quota system which is a sure fire path to corruption which is a sure fire path to contempt for cop on the part of the citizenry which is a sure fire way to increase crime as the years go by.
We need to do everything we can to produce and maintain a justice system that honorable and equitable and run like hell from anything that tends to corrupt that system.
Aurora (Score:2)
fewer accidents, but more rear-ends (Score:3)
Redmond recently ended their program (Score:3)
The city of Redmond, WA did a one year pilot study installing red light cameras at a few key intersections. The full study [redmond.gov] of how well they reduced traffic accidents is worth a read, but in a nutshell there was essentially no impact to the number of traffic collisions. 89% of the citations issued were for turning right on red without coming to a complete stop. The only place the cameras were useful was in the school zone.
Based on the above study the city decided to cancel the contract [redmond.gov] for the cameras.
Neil
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At least it is a number.
Most projects, most laws in general, are sold via some hand waving and appeals to emotion. At this point anything quantatative is a step in the right direction.