Red Light Cameras! Love them Or Hate Them...?

[Tomahawkin]

I hate them...because they make people who know that they exist at a certain intersection slam on their brakes (mainly on roads were the speed limit is 45-55mph) which causes accidents at the same frequency as intersections without them

However they do add extra revenue in tough economic times, but so does a speed trap...

There are Several in the Atlanta Metro Area...

Anyone Know of any other areas where they have installed them

[mightyace]

I've gone into why I hate them before, primarily:
1) You cannot face your accuser as it is a stupid machine!
2) Most are run by private companies for the jurisdictions that use them so there is even more motive than most governments have for abuse.

I'm sure there are others but the only two in Tennessee I know about are Murfreesboro and Knoxville.

[Chris]

I don't like them either. Sure, they'll remove some of the red light running, but they also cause people to slam their brakes just before the intersection once the light turns yellow. Imagine doing that with a semi up your ass.

Another problem I notice are speed cameras placed like 250 yards before the intersection, with an unreasonable low speed limit (like 30 mph on a 4 lane divided urban arterial), so you have to slow down to 30, and of course, the light just turns red, while you otherwise would've been able to catch a green light...

[vdeane]

In many areas traffic lights are arterials are set so that if you drive the speed limit you'll catch a long string of greens.  An extreme example is NY 332, which can be driven like a freeway even though it's not.

[SSOWorld]

several cities in Iowa are notorious for red light cameras

(which is not odd since I hardly see a cop of any jurisdiction on an Iowa road)

[UptownRoadGeek]

I don't have a problem with them anymore.  Once the general public realized where they were (they do have big Photo Enforced signs), people began to slam on brakes less and people have started to slow down in general on those streets as well.

[Alex]

They are used all over in California. Delaware joined the bandwagon years ago, with the city of Wilmington hosting quite a number of them. There's only one in Florida that I am 100% sure of and that's in the city of Gulf Breeze along U.S. 98. There are no signs for it though, so I wonder if its active.

In Mobile, Alabama they use "rat lights" but no red light cameras yet. They keep talking about passing legislation to permit them, but so far I don't believe its passed.

[agentsteel53]

what is a "rat light"?

[agentsteel53]

long stretches of greens freak me out because I can feel myself getting used to them.  I like about one red light in every 10 or 15 just to keep me honest.

what's the worst is long stretches of yellow.  I've passed through entire towns before, 20 or 30 lights, with each and every one of them just about to turn red on me.

California has the right idea: triggered lights, not timed ones.  they only change when there is side street traffic.  This beats sitting at an intersection watching the invisible funeral procession get right of way.

[florida]

California has the right idea: triggered lights, not timed ones.  they only change when there is side street traffic.  This beats sitting at an intersection watching the invisible funeral procession get right of way.

It would be nice if they enforced that type of signalization here.

There are just a few intersections here where they have red light cameras, and other intersections have blue lights at the top of the traffic signal to indicate a red light. In Polk County, they have white lights at the bottom of the signals to show when it turns red, but I've not seen cameras.

[Alex]

California has the right idea: triggered lights, not timed ones.  they only change when there is side street traffic.  This beats sitting at an intersection watching the invisible funeral procession get right of way.

It would be nice if they enforced that type of signalization here.

There are just a few intersections here where they have red light cameras, and other intersections have blue lights at the top of the traffic signal to indicate a red light. In Polk County, they have white lights at the bottom of the signals to show when it turns red, but I've not seen cameras.

They use the white lights in Pinellas/Hillsborough too and began putting in blue ones in western Orange County last year. Those lights are what are "rat lights", to answer Jake's question. Mobile, Alabama attaches them to the backsides of traffic lights, and they are always colored blue.

[Chris]

California has the right idea: triggered lights, not timed ones.  they only change when there is side street traffic.  This beats sitting at an intersection watching the invisible funeral procession get right of way.

Wow, fixed traffic light cycles are considered very outdated here... Almost all Dutch traffic lights are either vehicle or traffic dependable cycled. That means traffic lights either work on vehicles driving across an induction loops or on a network setup, depending on traffic further upstream.

[Bryant5493]

Hate them with a passion, because folks act like they don't know how to drive -- which most people don't drive well anyway -- around them.


Be well,

Bryant

[Duke87]

I firmly hold that in most circumstances they cause more accidents than they prevent.

The other problem, of course, with photographing someone's license plate and sending them a fine in the mail is... what if they're not driving at that particular moment. Say me and my buddy are in my car, taking a trip somewhere, but he's driving. He pushes a light and gets snagged by the camera. I get the ticket and the points on my license for it.
Or what if you have a teen driver whose car is registered in their parent's name. Or someone whose car is registered in their spouse's name.
You can't just assume that the person the car is registered to is driving it.

On the local note, legislation in Connecticut that would allow red light cameras and police department CCTV of public areas failed to pass a few weeks ago over privacy concerns.
Privacy concerns are the major issue with CCTV of streets by the cops. With red light cameras, it's just more that the system is flawed. 

Wow, fixed traffic light cycles are considered very outdated here... Almost all Dutch traffic lights are either vehicle or traffic dependable cycled.

My town (Stamford) has loops on its lights (though some of the newest ones use video detection instead). Half the lights in town have a loop that's broken and triggers its phase every cycle, mind you, but we have them!

[vdeane]

IMO, privacy concerns on this stuff are just bogus.  If you're in a public area, you should have no expectation of pravicy, it's as simple as that.

The "who's driving" issue is a valid concern.  To be honest, I never thought of it before.  Many others probably haven't either.

[mightyace]

The "who's driving" issue is a valid concern.  To be honest, I never thought of it before.  Many others probably haven't either.

I have, but I forgot when I posted earlier.

But, IIRC most if not all of the jurisdictions that use these don't put points on your record for a violation.  (At least, Murfreesboro, TN doesn't!)  Of course, that makes the case that they're for "traffic safety" even more dubious than it already is! 

[roadfro]

I'll admit I like the concept of red light cameras.  However, I am not a fan of how they are often implemented.  Too often, they are put in and the city/town instructs the engineers to shorten the yellow interval to increase violations in order to pad the city's budget.  This is totally unacceptable, because towns then make budgets expecting certain revenue dollars from red light violations.  There is the privacy/who's driving issue to consider as well.

[vdeane]

That's one reason why politicians should have no say in the roads.  The engineers should be making the decisions.

Besides, if they want revenue, why not just eliminate yellow entirely?  The can have the space on the light for it but not use it.  Should fool enough drivers to get a ton of revenue.

[roadfro]

^ Because eliminating the yellow interval would violate the MUTCD, state/national motor vehicle laws, and probably other regulations.

There is no national codified definition or formula for the duration of a yellow interval, though, which allows people to play around with it when red light cameras are installed.  The MUTCD merely states a yellow interval should be 3 to 6 seconds.  ITE has a widely-accepted formula based on speed and other factors, but it is only recommendation and its use is not binding on a wide scale (although some jurisdictions may have adopted it as a standard).

[agentsteel53]

I wish there would be a counter next to each light that counts down until the next phase change.  That would make me able to either stop on yellow or floor it on yellow much more accurately.

on green, I tend to use the pedestrian countdowns to see how long I have.  It's *at least that many* seconds, so if it shows 18 and I'm 3 blocks away, I may very well make that light.

[Duke87]

Too often, they are put in and the city/town instructs the engineers to shorten the yellow interval to increase violations in order to pad the city's budget. 

And the additional accidents that will cause... eh, who cares, right?

[vdeane]

on green, I tend to use the pedestrian countdowns to see how long I have.  It's *at least that many* seconds, so if it shows 18 and I'm 3 blocks away, I may very well make that light.

I like using pedestrian signals for this too; too bad here in Rochester there are a few that are on "don't walk" all the time unless the button is pushed, even if it's perfectly safe to cross (green light for the road, no arrows).

[Bryant5493]

^^ Yeah, I do that as well. More of those pedestrian countdown signals are popping up in the Metro Atlanta area. The first place that I saw them was Downtown Atlanta, around the Georgia State University campus.


Be well,

Bryant

[Truvelo]

Some of the latest generation red light cameras in the UK are now speed on green where they act as normal speed cameras when the lights are on green. The traditional type were just for red lights so if you were a few car lengths from the stop line and the lights changed to amber you could speed up to make it across before they changed to red. With the new speed on green cameras you'll end up with a £60 ($90) ticket

The red light cameras I've seen in the US have no turn on red. Is this because the camera can't tell if a vehicle in the right hand lane is going to turn? At one intersection I use frequently the ban on turning on red isn't because of visiblity issues so it could only be due to the camera.

Chris mentioned a few posts ago about traffic lights in Holland all being vehicle activated. The same applies here as well. There's a set of lights near me with three phases and they always go through the same sequence. In the early hours of the morning if I approach those lights and my direction isn't the next in turn to change to green it will do so if there's no vehicles approaching from the other two directions, also the lights will change to green well before reaching the stop line so you don't waste time and fuel having to stop, very smart.

[roadfro]

I wish there would be a counter next to each light that counts down until the next phase change.  That would make me able to either stop on yellow or floor it on yellow much more accurately.

on green, I tend to use the pedestrian countdowns to see how long I have.  It's *at least that many* seconds, so if it shows 18 and I'm 3 blocks away, I may very well make that light.

A counter like this wouldn't be practical with most signals.  With semi-actuated and fully-actuated signals, such a counter wouldn't be reliable because the signal wouldn't change until there's demand.  A counter like this is only practical on pre-timed signal systems.  Even still, I believe such counter devices are actually prohibited in the MUTCD.

Pedestrian countdown heads work wonders for this purpose, though.  If the signal is set up in the 'rest in walk' mode (where it gives the walk signal regardless if a button is pressed), the pedestrian countdown timer doubles as a countdown to yellow for the adjacent vehicle phase--the MUTCD standard is for the 'flashing don't walk' countdown to reach zero on or before they adjacent through yellow signal.  Many arterial signals in Las Vegas are set up this way.