$574 Red Light Ticket

[Barney_Fife]

the thing about that video is though, and all it does is support the fact there ARE some bad apples in this profession, is the video was a fake. That officer had some discipline issues with courtesy complaints etc so he set that up to show how well he can handle the situation. its all been brought out in the open several years ago.

[eharri3]

i love when people say they were caught off guard on a red light and "had to run it" . um...yellow light is there for a reason. it doesnt just go from green to red. if one is doing the posted limit, theres no reason not to be able to stop in time for a red. its all engineered that way. unless someone is just flat not paying attention or just speeding to where the duration of yellow isnt sufficient. lots of people dont even know to pay attention to crosswalk signals etc in order to get an idea of how "stale" the green light is and how likely it is it will change to yellow and then to red. whats scary is if one cant react to a yellow light in time to stop, what are they going to do when its a car or a person they have to react to?

If you ever get to Philly you can jump in my truck and we can take a ride through some of the residential areas of the city. I can show you just what a good job the learning disabled traffic engineers here do. I have tested with a stopwatch and experimented with this stuff. There are streets I can drive down where there is a light-to-light variation in yellow from about 1 seconds to nearly 4 seconds. Yes, there are some 1-1.5 second yellows here. The 4 second yellows work well and anyone can see it, react, and slow down safely from the posted limit in plenty of time. The 1-2 second yellows... it is not humanly possible to slow down safely unless you do one of two things: Drive at about half the posted limit, or gun it and push the light. I was stopped one night after blowing a red late at night and let off the hook, because as I pointed out to the officers, this was one of those 1 second yellows. The only two options open to me were to do 5 mph in a 25 mph zone so I would have had some chance of reacting and slowing down, or blowing the light. I was sent on my way without a ticket. This was a few years ago, and this light still has the same timing to this day. The yellow literally lasts the blink of an eye and people blow the red all the time. It might as well, as you say, go straight from green to red. What's more, if I'm unfamiliar with the area and just encountered 3-5 second yellows in the last two blocks, and I'm thinking they're all that way, I figure I will encounter the same thing at the next intersection and have plenty of time to slow down. So I'll be cruising the speed limit, see the light go yellow then red in less than 2 seconds, and have no choice but to either stomp the brakes or blow it. If I KNOW this light was timed by retards, I will probably start slowing down while it's still green and ignore the honks and middle fingers from behind me.

This is poor traffic engineering, and it happens alot. If it were fixed, alot of this would stop and you could weed out the people who have no time to react and concentrate on those who just don't care about obeying traffic laws. It's the best thing for traffic safety, but unfortunately, not lucrative enough to be a very attractive option. In my opinion red light counters are a better investment than cameras, and should DEFINITELY be up at any intersection where camera enforcement happens. There is no guesswork or no lack of clarity in this scenario. There is no possible way I could make any valid excuse that I didn't have time to stop ,because the counter told me exactly how many seconds I had left before the red light.

Interesting reading on how this ended up becoming big on REVENUE with safety becoming a distant afterthought. Escpecially in the deals that involve ticket quotas and monthly kick-backs to the camera company, which REQUIRE ensuring a steady revenue stream so the monthly fees can be covered and the locality can turn a profit on top of that. Otherwise, as has been the case in various parts of the country, this supposed revolutionary and highly effective safety measure that saves lives suddenly goes away when it costs more money than it brings in.

Looks like a few cities were caught stacking the odds in favor of more violations and more tickets. I wonder, as the article mentions, how much more often this is happening where nobody has proven it yet.

6 Cities That Were Caught Shortening Yellow Light Times For Profit

Red Light Citations Drop Below One Per Day

[spazstic]

If you ever get to Philly you can jump in my truck and we can take a ride through some of the residential areas of the city. I can show you just what a good job the learning disabled traffic engineers here do. I have tested with a stopwatch and experimented with this stuff. There are streets I can drive down where there is a light-to-light variation in yellow from about 1 seconds to nearly 4 seconds. Yes, there are some 1-1.5 second yellows here. The 4 second yellows work well and anyone can see it, react, and slow down safely from the posted limit in plenty of time. The 1-2 second yellows... it is not humanly possible to slow down safely unless you do one of two things: Drive at about half the posted limit, or gun it and push the light. I was stopped one night after blowing a red late at night and let off the hook, because as I pointed out to the officers, this was one of those 1 second yellows. The only two options open to me were to do 5 mph in a 25 mph zone so I would have had some chance of reacting and slowing down, or blowing the light. I was sent on my way without a ticket. This was a few years ago, and this light still has the same timing to this day. The yellow literally lasts the blink of an eye and people blow the red all the time. It might as well, as you say, go straight from green to red. What's more, if I'm unfamiliar with the area and just encountered 3-5 second yellows in the last two blocks, and I'm thinking they're all that way, I figure I will encounter the same thing at the next intersection and have plenty of time to slow down. So I'll be cruising the speed limit, see the light go yellow then red in less than 2 seconds, and have no choice but to either stomp the brakes or blow it. If I KNOW this light was timed by retards, I will probably start slowing down while it's still green and ignore the honks and middle fingers from behind me.

This is poor traffic engineering, and it happens alot. If it were fixed, alot of this would stop and you could weed out the people who have no time to react and concentrate on those who just don't care about obeying traffic laws. It's the best thing for traffic safety, but unfortunately, not lucrative enough to be a very attractive option. In my opinion red light counters are a better investment than cameras, and should DEFINITELY be up at any intersection where camera enforcement happens. There is no guesswork or no lack of clarity in this scenario. There is no possible way I could make any valid excuse that I didn't have time to stop ,because the counter told me exactly how many seconds I had left before the red light.

Interesting reading on how this ended up becoming big on REVENUE with safety becoming a distant afterthought. Escpecially in the deals that involve ticket quotas and monthly kick-backs to the camera company, which REQUIRE ensuring a steady revenue stream so the monthly fees can be covered and the locality can turn a profit on top of that. Otherwise, as has been the case in various parts of the country, this supposed revolutionary and highly effective safety measure that saves lives suddenly goes away when it costs more money than it brings in.

Looks like a few cities were caught stacking the odds in favor of more violations and more tickets. I wonder, as the article mentions, how much more often this is happening where nobody has proven it yet.

6 Cities That Were Caught Shortening Yellow Light Times For Profit

Red Light Citations Drop Below One Per Day

Great information, and I absolutely agree. I did some research on this, and the light that I got the ticket at is in between a 40 and 45 zone (I was heading into the 40 zone). According to this:

Home - Expanded

I should have between 3.9 and 4.3 seconds. The light I "ran" is running at about 2.5 seconds, and the other lights along the road are running at about 3 seconds.

I plan on getting a videotape of this at 30 fps, and counting the frames to find the exact timing, with proof. Hopefully if I take this to court, I can get the ticket dropped. 2.5 seconds is ridiculous.

+rep eharri3