These statistics are utter bullshit, right?

"Rainbow" (rainbeaux) 02/26/2014 at 00:30 • Filed to: None

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Last I checked, red light cameras are the CAUSE of hundreds, if not thousands, of rear-end collisions due to drivers panic-braking to avoid a ticket. There is not a chance in hell that they could have cut the amount of collisions in half. If anything, they had the opposite effect.

Manuél Ferrari > Rainbow 02/26/2014 at 00:51

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I despise these things. Luckily they have gone away in my county. Too many lawsuits against them.

They do cause undesired effects. People speed up for stale greens and/or slam on the brakes if they don't think they'll have enough time to stop.

I drove a route for years that had a truly terrible one until it was finally taken down. A 65 MPH CA freeway ended and became a 35 MPH congested street. There is literally no slow down section where the speed limit graduates from 65 to 35, it is all in one shot.

Imagine how dangerous that is even without a red light camera. Now add a red light camera to all 4 directions of that totally FUBAR intersection. It made me super paranoid. I was both worried about running red lights and getting rear ended all at the same time.

The worst part about the cameras is that they can cause you to be overly paranoid. I remember accidentally stopping at yellow lights that I easily could have made while continuing at a safe speed. That's not good because that definitely increases your chances of getting hit. That paranoia affects your driving confidence. And confidence is so important in driving. If you overthink driving it can make you jerky and erratic.

Down with the red light cameras! Up with more round abouts!

MtrRider > Manuél Ferrari 02/26/2014 at 00:58

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More roundabouts? Have you driven though the one in Orange? People approach it like a UFO. They go around it as if they've never driven a car before.

offroadkarter > Rainbow 02/26/2014 at 01:16

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Red light cameras are for one thing and one thing only

Revenue

Anyone who tries to argue otherwise can go to hell

Manuél Ferrari > MtrRider 02/26/2014 at 01:25

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Yes. You are exactly correct. People don't know WTF to do with it because we don't have enough of them. That's why we need MOAR ROUNDABOUTS!

I lived in Sydney for a year and it was freaking awesome cause of roundabouts. Nothing is more fun than taking a deserted roundabout at a swift (not dangerous, just swift) speed. Instead of coming to a full stop when nobody is around you get to test your suspension a bit.

GhostZ > Rainbow 02/26/2014 at 01:28

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They probably cut T-Bone collisions in half, and then double or triple rear-ending.

MtrRider > Manuél Ferrari 02/26/2014 at 01:33

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People will still come to a complete stop before creeping into them at 3 mph. Every. Fucking. Time.

Svend > Rainbow 02/26/2014 at 01:43

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All of them I've seen in this video are people racing to an already red light, some even with already stationery vehicles at the red light. Surely the issue is people driving without due care and attention and driving too fast for the road conditions and merely treating the red lights as advisories even when others have said erm,,, thats a red light,,,, I should stop,,,, I will stop.

There are cures for many things. There is still however no cure for stupid.

Manuél Ferrari > MtrRider 02/26/2014 at 01:55

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even if we had zillions of them?

are americans just slower than australians?

if we can survive this kinja roll out then we can survive more round abouts

wait, we may not survive this kinja roll out...

Big Bubba Ray > Rainbow 02/26/2014 at 02:03

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Can someone make a gif of that last crash? Hilarious. I played it back 5 or 6 times

MtrRider > Manuél Ferrari 02/26/2014 at 02:12

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Maybe it's just me, but Kinja is not working terribly well right now. At all.

If roundabouts were suddenly common, I'm sure people would figure them out after a few years. The problem is, Americans aren't simply ignorant of them, they hate them. American driving culture can't support them- look at zipper merges. We can't do it, every lane closure causes a traffic backup a mile long. We're too aggressive, too selfish and too distracted.

Manuél Ferrari > MtrRider 02/26/2014 at 02:14

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You're probably right. We need traffic lines and super wide lanes. And other odd things drivers don't need everywhere else.

Kinja is all wonky for me too. This roll out is very glitchy.

MtrRider > Manuél Ferrari 02/26/2014 at 02:44

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All we need is love.

Manuél Ferrari > MtrRider 02/26/2014 at 02:57

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and hot redheaded chicks to love

MtrRider > Manuél Ferrari 02/26/2014 at 03:06

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Redheads, eh?

Manuél Ferrari > MtrRider 02/26/2014 at 03:08

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WHY DOESN'T THE NEW KINJA HAVE A SPECIAL FEATURE TO GIVE SUPER HOT REDHEAD PICS 1000 STARS?

that would have actually be useful. you deserve way more than 1 star for that post.

MtrRider > Manuél Ferrari 02/26/2014 at 03:22

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How about this one?

davedave1111 > Rainbow 02/26/2014 at 06:01

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It is literally impossible for a red-light camera to cause an accident. Trigger one, just conceivably, but not cause one.

If the person in front of you jams on their brakes, should you a) hit the back of their car or b) always have enough stopping distance to stop without hitting their car?

As long as you're not speeding well over the limit, you will have enough time between the amber and red phases of the light to either stop safely or pass the light.

That said, it's quite possible, even likely, that the statistics are still being fiddled. But there's no question about it, red light cameras significantly reduce the number of accidents at intersections whilst also increasing traffic throughput. Or rather, people being dicks and not stopping for red lights the way they should causes accidents and reduces throughput; traffic light cameras merely enforce proper behaviour on the dicks.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > davedave1111 02/26/2014 at 09:08

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You may or may not be aware, but operators of red light cameras have been caught fiddling with the yellow interval. If the yellow interval is reduced below what is typical, below what *was* typical for *that intersection* or even below what is safe (as has been done numerous times), it is very possible for the quick shift to alarm someone into stopping dangerously rather than being *made to run* the "gotcha" red. Between that and the fact that the green from an alternate direction will follow more closely in such a case, I don't think you'd say that the red light cam itself caused an accident, but the operators sure as fuck contributed. Many, many cases of shortened interval have been encountered in the US - it's proved to be endemic whenever traffic cams are used for revenue.

Manuél Ferrari > MtrRider 02/26/2014 at 13:04

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also multiple star worthy!

davedave1111 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 02/26/2014 at 13:54

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Of course the interval shortens. That's the whole damn point. When you don't have to worry about assholes running red lights, you don't need as long between light cycles - hence the increased throughput.

If you don't run red lights, you won't get caught running red lights. If you don't tailgate people, you won't hit anyone stopping for a red light.

This isn't rocket surgery. There's no excuse for the behaviour you're seeking to excuse, any more than there is for drink-driving.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > davedave1111 02/26/2014 at 14:16

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You missed my point completely, and attribute to me something I never implied - endorsement of running red lights. My point was that in given areas, where the length of the yellow *and only the yellow* was reduced below advisory length for the posted limit, the aim was attributed by critics to grossly favor revenue generation instead of improved safety. That's an argument I find plausible. Regardless of whether safe driving conditions should be followed at all times, behavior on the edge of safe should not be thoughtlessly pushed into unsafe by improper margin of safety.

The last time I can recall running a red light due to misjudged yellow length was over two years ago, and that by inattention as much as "trying to make the yellow". I regard running reds as execrable, and I still have the impression of the incident -had a cop ticketed me, I would have been extremely deserving. However, setting forth a regimen likely to produce panicked decisions is the effect of a short yellow, and in now way relates to "making excuses for people who run red lights". If you have to make criminals out of a fresh class of people to *earn money*, "the law is an ass".

davedave1111 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 02/26/2014 at 14:27

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Er, I got your point. I'm just disagreeing with it - because it's wrong. Your 'advisory length' (hurr-hurr) is the one that includes a fudge factor to take account of the red-light-runners. The actual minimum for a yellow is set by simple arithmetic. If the amber phase is reduced below that minimum, everyone will end up running the light.

Can I just check we agree on this bit: if a light turns amber as you're coming up to it, you should stop unless you'd have to do an emergency stop. Many people think it's OK to try and work out whether you can get through before it goes red, but that's not the point of the amber phase.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > davedave1111 02/26/2014 at 14:38

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We differ, then, on whether a fudge factor is appropriate, fair enough. I'd rather have two people pass on amber than one panic stop, but to each his own. I'm not arguing the arithmetic isn't predictable, either, but with variation in human reaction time I like to think an interval would favor the deep end.

Turning amber as you come up to it, should stop: agreed. It just makes things a bit choppy when you have a town full of lights calibrated to higher speeds than they have in practice, + a fudge factor for runners, and then a few intersections with a short interval mixed in. A population trained (within reason) to proceed on certain yellow intervals are in for a world of hurt if it varies. Just as an example, Greenville, SC here in the US would be converted to pandemonium by a red-light camera or two along US-25 - despite the fact that speeding of a sort is endemic (lots of town/open road changes) and a lethargic local driving style, it's not a bellwether of high accident rates.

davedave1111 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 02/26/2014 at 14:50

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Any change will confuse the idiots, that goes without saying. But once they've learnt to adapt, it'll just be what they're used to.

At the end of the day, red light cameras literally cannot be used for revenue raising - it's impossible - and definitely do increase safety and, more importantly, throughput. They'd be unnecessary if people drove better, but since they don't, and since the cameras only affect bad drivers, really all us Jalops ought to be strongly in favour.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > davedave1111 02/26/2014 at 15:03

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Any attempt to binarily divide drivers into "good" and "bad", I find troubling, and inconsistency in expectation from the machinery of law is never a good thing, even if it's expectation of how long a light is camera'd/uncamera'd. But, I understand where you're coming from.

As to whether they can be used for revenue raising, that's a matter for the accountants - I read the details of one particular red-light contract that withered any remaining respect for traffic bureaucrats... In an atmosphere with low corruption, your statement is more axiomatic.

davedave1111 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 02/26/2014 at 15:07

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When we're talking about a very specific situation, like here, then it's less troubling to divide into 'good' and 'bad'.

As for revenue raising, though, you still don't seem to get it: it's literally impossible. You can use the cameras to give people the option between driving properly or getting a ticket, but unless you set the amber phase so short that it's impossible to stop, no-one who stops for amber will get a ticket.

Matt Urban > Big Bubba Ray 02/26/2014 at 15:31

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that last one deserved it. what was he going to do? That light was way red.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > davedave1111 02/26/2014 at 15:40

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Your second point I got correctly the first time I read your post, then forgot by the second. D'oh well.

I maintain altering burden from reasonable to unreasonable can be a de facto impossible standard, regardless of theoretical possibility, and legal enforcement typically follows that rule. If a standard is de facto impossible to follow, then catching nominally law-abiding people out with it becomes significantly less "impossible" if we permit the real world to intrude. It's impossible for the camera to cause a run, as such, but it is possible for it to be contributory to an unreasonable situation.

I seem to recall a few instances of red-light camera contractors setting less than a two-second yellow in a 35mph+ zone. While theoretically possible to adhere to, it requires excellent reaction - a man with a well maintained modern vehicle reacting the very instant he sees it. If the man's glimpse of the yellow "lags" by a half second in his comprehension, he may believe himself to be entering the intersection on yellow, too late to stop - just as it turns red. Commence panic stop or (frankly unjustified) ticket. Did the yellow light reduction cause the incident as such? Not really, but I'd argue its use contributed. Did the system make the intersection any safer? With its inherent additions to risk *as applied*, it probably only hits par - definitely not in this man's case. Let's expand: at what combination of driver reaction time/vehicle responsivity does the mathematical possibility (and burden to obey the law) translate into an impossibility (and forced transgression)? I think we'd agree there should be such a line at some point, but differ on where it should be set.

If a city places a system in place willfully meant to capitalize on an unreasonable standard, then is it similar or even de facto equal to an *impossible* standard? We may have to agree to disagree. The level of this behavior may vary by principality or even be non-existent by locale, but in the US at least there are certainly cases of significant revenue increase via red light cameras/speed cameras with little to no measured effect on safety, so whether or not the offenders were *technically* capable of conforming to the law, one must ask, "cui bono?"

davedave1111 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 02/26/2014 at 15:51

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"I seem to recall a few instances of red-light camera contractors setting less than a two-second yellow in a 35mph+ zone. While theoretically possible to adhere to, it requires excellent reaction - a man with a well maintained modern vehicle reacting the very instant he sees it. If the man's glimpse of the yellow "lags" by a half second in his comprehension, he may believe himself to be entering the intersection on yellow, too late to stop - just as it turns red. Commence panic stop or (frankly unjustified) ticket."

Is that going to be a one-off, though, or something that'll get pretty much every driver who goes through the light?

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > davedave1111 02/26/2014 at 16:08

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As many people going through the light as they can get away with - even 2-5% of all people traveling through the light/ a third of the people who try to "make the yellow" is still a pretty good take. Assuming a certain level of crookedness on the part of the operator, the inference follows that the interval will be set to the optimal level between low public reaction and financial return. You know, like any revenue scheme.

davedave1111 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 02/26/2014 at 16:20

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Assuming a certain level of crookedness on the part of the operator, the inference follows that the interval will be set to the optimal level between low public reaction and financial return.

Are you arguing for more red light cameras? :)

No, seriously, I get what you're saying. The question is whether running a red light is in the same category as, say, minor speeding on a clear road, or drink-driving.

If whoever's responsible is putting up speed cameras in completely inappropriate places just to catch people doing ever so slightly over a rather arbitrarily set speed limit, that's clearly revenue-raising. You could, of course, avoid tickets by never, ever exceeding the speed limit, but that's not reasonable.

Then there's drink-driving. It's never OK*, so (civil liberties issues aside) there's no problem with enforcing the law rigourously.

To my mind, running reds/'making the yellow' is in the latter category: it's never OK.

[*As it happens, I'd actually say our drink drive laws would be better if they permitted not-too-drunk people to crawl with their hazard lights on, where it's safe to go that slowly (on empty suburban roads, for example). Of course doing that will actually get you pulled over for DUI, where people normally get away with driving drunk at normal speeds - the incentive is to try and hide that you're drunk, rather than to drive well within the limits of your drunkenness. That's a whole 'nother can of worms, though.]

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > davedave1111 02/26/2014 at 17:47

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I'm entirely with you on drink-driving being never OK, but I'm opposed to drink-driving regs with a hard line set below .08 (i.e. roughly the point at which any symptoms of alcohol are variable and in overlap with a host of other factors: age, fatigue, time of day) - I'm also someone who doesn't believe it's a binary offense beyond the most basic level. I.e. never OK does not mean a burden to put every offender as they say under the jail - the man on a roaring vomiting bender is much worse than the man who's a little slowed. This produces the quandary of where we draw the line, as at some point a man who must return home, who had two cocktails an hour ago will be more imperiled by fatigue than any remaining alcohol... At what minute does he become no longer an offender, though just as dangerous or undangerous? Civil issues, agreed best discussed another day. I strongly agree that some type of safe harbor would be a relief on that, though I'm not sure how it would work.

My primary point with yellow-light foibles is that I think a similar interminable boundary exists between "too late to stop" and "making the yellow", and creating a legal environment permitting the more forcible intrusion into that boundary region is similarly problematic. The man who can't stop in time, the man who can't stop in time due to inattentiveness, the man who guns it to make it through, and the man who blasts the red at will are all to be struck with the same standard, with all treated by the law, insurance, and society as if they are Man #4 in his worst escapades - permitting only that the short yellow light ensnares them. We can with some certainty state that #3 and #4 are "Never OK", and with perhaps substantial vim condemn #2 as well, though his case is the boundary between happenstance and will. If we set our net to catch #2, we may only rarely catch #1, but was that the correct level to operate at in the first place?

In other words, a highly binary manner of enforcement practice as promoted by overuse of an even more highly binary system lends itself to process that is not cogent and corruption.

As an extension from that point, it may surprise you to hear that in principle I'm not against breathalyzer tests, no more than I'm against the radar gun or the cop positioned near the red light-abused intersection. If, however, the laws operating around said test and practices such as breathalyzing all at a checkpoint take place, a similar issue arises. Patriotism may be one of the refuges of a scoundrel, but alleged mechanical perfection is certainly another, as it permits enormous license for abuse. It's a false infallibility, as they say, "GIGO".

Back around to the red-light camera: if the camera in use does not deviate from what people can reasonably expect, then it's not a huge imposition in a natural sense as an enforcement mechanism (ignoring privacy concerns or whatnot). If the camera is coupled with something intentionally or unintentionally gating those on the margin of the law into outright violation, it's a problem. Using the drink-driving analogy, it's almost like forcing people to finish their drink at the bar - whether some people then will be more reckless than they should otherwise have been, or others more cautious, it stands to reason that tipping things toward more people being offenders is a problem. Whether littering will be reduced is not the point if the cop preparing to ticket those leaving the bar for any open containers is also prepared to follow for blood alcohol tests - there's just too much of a conflict of interest.

davedave1111 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 02/27/2014 at 08:45

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You comment deserves a much better response than I can be bothered to give it. :)