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Originally Posted by thestaton  thanks for this information. when I moved out of Dover, DE the cameras had been up for about a year, and I know a few friends who had gotten tickets. I've always heard the light is supposed to stay yellow for 1 second based on the set speedlimit. So if it's a 35MPH area the yellow should stay on for 3.5 seconds etc etc.
What I noticed after the cameras went up in Dover is the yellow lights where cut short by as much as 2 seconds.
I'll never forget this, I was setting at T.G.I. Fridays having a beer and relaxing when I heard a terrible, spine chilling noise. I went out side to see what had happened and sure enough someone had ran the redlight with one of these new cameras and T-Boned the hell out of another motorist. I remember watching in awe at how bad it was, and as the officers came to clear us away I remember telling him "Well atleast you got a picture"...
I personally see many places like where my girlfriend lives in ForrestHill, MD setting up redlight cameras, but they are sparring no expense and they are enabling them to track your speed. I see this as a down hill slide, because at any time they can just turn on the speed tracking.
I'm glad I've moved back to KY, I believe hell will freeze before we see any such automation around here. |
I've noticed something else. When I did speed surveys at intersections with the highest number of accidents in Phoenix ("Red Light-Running Capital of the Nation for the 16th straight year--and proud of it") I noticed that they set the yellow duration for the absolute shortest allowed by law. 40 mph intersections were all at 3.89 seconds. Trouble is, when I did a speed survey, the 85th percentile speeds averaged 47-48 mph at the same intersections. Bottom line: every light of the 20 I checked was at least 1.2 seconds too short--even if set to minimum allowable. One intersection--a wide one with six lanes east-west on a steep dowhill grade and a slow-speed, two-lane side road crossing it, had its yellow set at 2.5 seconds. But traffic was blowing past downhill at 57 mph. Yellow should've been more like 6 seconds minimum.
Phoenix traffic engineers created the problem, installed cameras to solve it and ended up with a record number of violations and even more accidents. Then they whine about all the lawless red-light runners.