No, it is a fact... I believe it was Tuscon a few years ago that got caught shortening yellow light times and had to put it back where they should have been. It seems that some people entrusted with the law are the very ones that can't be trusted with a law.

 

Yes. . . that's not legal. It doesn't comply with NHTSA/DOT regulations. Just because some idiots botched it in one town, doesn't mean every town is doing it.

I mean, if you see a person getting beaten by police on TV, it doesn't mean that it happens everywhere. When's the last time police brutally beat you?

 

I'm sorry, I meant the Federal Highway Administration (FWHA).

And the MUTCD specifies that light durations MUST be 3 to 6 seconds, and must comply within specific guidelines.

 

Dude...you completely missed my point... I said it has happened, it happened until they were caught and only then was it corrected. If you read back I said to be careful because this has happened before. I never said it was going to happen, I said it could.
I have no idea where the being beaten by cops came from.

 

Gotcha. . . it's just that making statements like that is more prone to spread paranoia than it is to actually help someone. In all reality, the odds of your city reducing your yellow lights is next to zilch.

And the reason I argue so difinitively is because arguing like a raging anti-big brother leftie doesn't do much in the realm of politics. . . because cases such as cities who shorten yellow lights, which are far and few (and ILLEGAL) are used as cannon fodder. There are many good arguments to use, and distracting from the main point takes away from the argument. The bottom line (which has been mentioned): Photo enforcement may do more harm than good, in terms of accidents, which I think you have no argument with.

 

No, I have no problem at att with that argument.. In fact I stated that at photo controlled intersections, there are more rear ender accidents.


Truce

 

I'd rather get rear ended because I was overly cautious than be broadsided by someone with a disregard for others' safety.

 

So let me get this straight... nobody has a complaint if a cop keeps his eye on an intersection and issues tickets when someone runs a red, but automate the process with a camera and suddenly its an infringement of your rights? Your right to what? To run the light?

Its a PUBLIC road... you shouldn't have much expectation of privacy anything you're on it anyway...

 

id like to make a couple of points.

1) the photoblocker spray does work, i have seen it work.
2) i got a ticket for running a red light, cuz i was stuck behing a truck and was in the pedestrian crosswalk the entire light at a T section because the next light had turned red. when my light turned red instead of sitting there and causing traffic (people and pedestrian) i went around the truck to create space. a machine cant tell what i did, an officer that was there could have.
3) these lights also give tickets for people who jump the gun for a green, saw that happen to the guy next to me
4) they cause more rearend accidents
5) it all started cuz some chicks daughter was retarded and didnt know how to cross a street. now in ny on queens blvd we also have "a pedestrian was killed here" signs. its usually a 12lane road, that lights r to short, but is the sign a warning or an objective .... hmm

 

In the end, all BS and politics aside, you have to look at it from an economics point of view. . . as everything else is HIGHLY subjective.

Will red light cameras inrease accidents or decrease accidents? Is the net decrease in red light violations greater than the increase in rear end collisions? Finally, is it worth the cost to setup the equipment (yes, it actually costs money). True, it does eventually pay for itself, but it's not a very high source of gov't income. . . hahaha property tax though. . . but to stay on topic. . .

If you guys want action over just plain complaining, write to your city council. Better yet, get a large organization of protestors (car clubs would be a great start) and let them no that they will be voted out of office next election, if they don't act on your behalf. Trust me, threaten enough votes and you'll get what you want.

 

1) the photoblocker spray does work, i have seen it work.

Depends on the quality of the camera. It doesn't always work.

2) i got a ticket for running a red light, cuz i was stuck behing a truck and was in the pedestrian crosswalk the entire light at a T section because the next light had turned red. when my light turned red instead of sitting there and causing traffic (people and pedestrian) i went around the truck to create space. a machine cant tell what i did, an officer that was there could have.

That assumes that the cop cares, and it also assumes you wouldn't be able to get the camera-generated ticket dismissed.

3) these lights also give tickets for people who jump the gun for a green, saw that happen to the guy next to me

That's a bad thing?

4) they cause more rearend accidents

So what? If they make up for it in reduced t-bone accidents what's the difference?

5) it all started cuz some chicks daughter was retarded and didnt know how to cross a street. now in ny on queens blvd we also have "a pedestrian was killed here" signs. its usually a 12lane road, that lights r to short, but is the sign a warning or an objective .... hmm

I bet that's how speed limits and stop signs got invented too...

 

either way u look @ it - this sux!

 

Actually, the first implementation of the commonly known "speed limit" was during World War IIl. . . and it was actually an effort to reduce oil consumption. Safety was a secondary benefit.

There are records of a few speed limits imposed locally, but few ever stayed in effect for long periods of time.

 

Prior to WWII, highway speeds were pretty much self-limiting, since few cars were capable of high speeds on the poor roads of the era. Hazardous speeds quickly resulted in damage to the vehicle!

However, speed limits were very common in cities and even pre-date the automobile. Horatio Nelson Jackson, the first person to drive across America in a car was ticketed for excessive speed shortly after returning to his hometown in New York, and his car was capable of only about 30MPH.

George

 

Probably decrease accidents in the intersection, at least at first. Accidents outside the intersection will probably increase, but that statistic won't be reported very often.

Will the profits be worth the cost? Absolutely! There are private companies begging cities to allow them to set up the cameras for free just to get a cut of the profits!

Not a high source of government income? Every time that camera flashes you should hear the Ka-Ching of another $200 (in SoCal) hitting the government coffers (after the camera company takes its cut). 10 of these are equivalent to the annual property tax paid on a typical home hereabouts and it is all free money to the city. They don't have to provide a single service to reap that profit. They can actually cut police services, since the cop who would have sat and watched the intersection for a half-hour to catch each violator can now be laid off.

The fine structure was set up to deter people from infractions for which there was an intermittant chance of being caught, so the fines were set high. Now the paradigm has changed, with an unblinking robotic policeman catching every single infraction, yet the fines remain at their previous levels.

The real damage is to our privacy and personal freedom. We are essentially allowing a machine to be the judge and jury that convicts us of a crime. The person charged has the right to a trial and to confront their accusor, but the camera cannot be cross-examined. You cannot ask a camera about the circumstances under which it collected its evidence. The state gets around this by saying that it's not the camera doing the accusing, but the officer who "reviewed" the photos, but the fact is that the officer wasn't present when the infraction was recorded. He can only testify that he believes that the camera was working properly at the time of the infraction and that the pictures show a true image of the infraction.

If this is allowed to continue, how long will it take for cities to realize that it is very easy to dip into the public's pockets with all sorts of photographic enforcement. Speed cameras, lane change cameras, stop sign cameras, etc. will come into existance as the price of the hardware drops and software becomes more capable. Enforcement will go way beyond vehicular applications. How will you like getting a ticket for spitting in the gutter because the overhead camera saw the infraction, matched your face from its database, and wrote you up, all in a fraction of a second?

This is the brave new world, unless we say "no".

George

 

u guys are so knowledgable i'm so impressed..

 

Its probably only a matter of time before the cameras take both still photos and video, which would stand up in court a lot better.

I don't fully buy the "its all about revenue enhancement" agrument, but even if that's true, I'd rather they enhance revenues by going after red-light runners than by just raising taxes for everyone. I can generally control my light-running behavior a lot better than I can control how much taxes I have to pay.

And as for cameras putting cops out of work, that might happen only in places where there's some sort of crime shortage. For the rest of us, it lets cops keep more heat on real criminals.

 

I like your answer, and you do have a point about it there being a high margin of profit. I'm also sure you're right that ten are equivalent to the property tax of an average home. . . however, I havn't seen more than 10-20 of these things in a given city. Last I checked, they don't make up a high percentage of a cities annual budget, and that was more so the point I was trying to make.

But you're right in the sense that if they get out of hand, it will cost us an arm and a leg.

 

That time is now. The newer cameras do take several seconds of video as a backup to the still photography.

I do buy the part about it being all about revenue enhancement. If it wasn't, there would be "Red Light Task Forces" of cops out solely to stem the "epidemic" of red light running. The fact is, there is no "epidemic". Red light accidents are called "Decision Errors" by the NTHSA, and they rank behind Driver Inattention, Vehicle Speed, Alcohol Impairment, and Perceptual Errors in their 2001 traffic safety report. the only class of accident cause that ranked less than Decision Errors was Incapacitation!

If the city really cared about preventing accidents, they could just as easily have installed "Prepare to Stop" signs timed to warn drivers that the signal is about to change and that they are too late to make it. I've seen these in Northern Nevada and they work great. Unfortunately, they don't produce any revenue, so there is little incentive for most cities to install them.

Here's the study:

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/inju...mmtechrept.pdf

 

George. . . I wish I had you on speed dial on my phone. Links, citations, clear and concise logic. . .

Arguing with you is so fun, because I always end up learning something. I never even knew about the "prepare to stop" thing, and it sounds like a much more viable alternative. Furthermore, you make an excellent point that red light accidents are usually considered decision errors, unlike speeding.