Discussion on:

Do red-light cameras actually make us safer?

Did anyone count the rear end accidents at the intersection before cameras were installed and while they were in operation?

I bet they went up dramatically

Absolutely they did. One suburb north of Denver had to remove them. Multiple rear-enders nearly every day - carnage. Finally they traded the revenue for safety. They also had problems with the same sensors detecting someone in the far right lane with their bumper over the white line by a couple of inches (waithing to turn right on a red) and giving them a red light ticket. Complete scam. The City of Aurora is still holding on to them - they can't quite give up the revenue...no matter what it costs....

I will bet communities that stick with it over several years see a drop off in rear ending accidents as drivers learn to manage the lights. Especially if the city has avoided the temptation to cut the yellow lights short to increase revenue.

I will bet you lunch the cities with a rear ending problem have shortened the yellow lights to boost revenue.

Yes, the number of people going through red lights went down, but the number of rear end collisions have gone up.
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/02/288.asp
Even a government study admits that they increased:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/05048/11.cfm

Additionally, more pedestrians are injured at intersections with red light cameras than without them.

Neither study researches how night time crashes may have increased due to drivers being blinded by the flash of light emitted from the cameras.

There are also studies that show an overall 40% increase in accidents at intersections with red light cameras.
http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/crash-risk-study

These studies were found within 5 minutes of searching the internet. If you are going to do an article like this, please take a few moments and do the research and present both sides. Not just the one that you want to be true.

Stopping at a red light does not always avoid a ticket. You can make a legal right turn on red and still be sent a ticket. You can enter the light on the green, making a left hand turn and the yellow be too short for you to make it through before the light turns red. There are various other ways, the technology is not perfect, but in many jurisdictions, you have no right to contest a red light camera ticket.

There are always at least two sides of any story. Not only is this "news" account misleading, the Old Dominion researchers are guilty of unethical research for not making clear that their study only counted the number of red light violations and was not actually a measure of intersection safety.

However, these cameras certainly do produce revenue for cash-strapped community budgets. I suspect that if one follows the money, one would find a biased funder behind this study.

http://www.highwayrobbery.net has a number of pages that discuss your point.

here i saw more horrible accidents on intersections with cameras . yes ,drivers knew that there are cameras ,when its yellow =they speeded more=hoping to cross.scene 1=the one on front stops =sudden full braking creates beutiful accidents (too much viewers after).
scene 2=front driver tries to beat that yellow but time and car tech did not permit=might collide with hurrying from sides.
there are many scenes.

of course most were able to finely manage.

what i believe ,is not the cameras only,but to install a BIG count down timer .
youll see if you make it or too late from yellow .

and publish where the money goes.

sorry

difficult typing in gnote

More tickets equals more revenue. Equals higher car insurance. Equals less income to spend on food and other goods. This is a win for Big Brother and Insurance companies.

Government always looks for an altruistic reason to raid your pocketbook. After being "had" time and time again, you'd think that adult American citizens would be wise to the endless trail of BS.

Rear-end crashes are caused by Tail-Gaters... period, end of story.

Tail-Gateing is the only way to drive in intense traffic, otherwise the transit times would double or triple. Safe driving is about knowing what You can do and being allert, not blindly following suggestions removed form real-life realities.

Computer studies of traffic patterns have shown that a slight increase in the average following distance, compared to current averages, allows traffic to better handle sudden changes in speed cause by human error.

So the, OPPS I almost missed my exit, sudden braking and lane change is far less disruptive when safer following distances are maintained. The multi-car accidents that often result from tailgating are far more disruptive than increased following distances.

This particular study is on lane designs to reduce tailgating, but every study of tailgating comes to the same conclusion. It is dangerous and causes far more traffic problems than people think it solves.

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/trafficeng/tailgating/Tailgating-finalreport.pdf

I think the best example is the traffic lights installed on freeway on-ramps. Studies show that this brief spacing of vehicles allows for better, more natural traffic flows.

that might help. But I have no ability to change anyone's following distance but my own. If I leave a bigger gap that everyone else, I am constantly cut-off -- I am just encouraging the lane-changers to make unsafe maneuvers. And then everyone in the vicinity has to brake to avoid the lane-changer or make room for him.

Those traffic studies have one big problem -- they consider groups and group averages, but not individuals.

As mentioned in a comment above me, while violations are down, safety is not.

Most of the money collected for the ticket fine does NOT go to the enclosing jurisdiction, but to the equipment vendor (and in California, to the State of California). When the tickets are contested, the jurisdiction {city/town/county} still has to go and prosecute you. It's a money losing proposition for the city (they may collect $80 of a $500 fine, and it costs almost that much to send an assistant city attorney to court "for something this silly"). Your fine will be the same if you lose the case, so it's definitely a persuasive tactic.

Also, if you simply write the merchants and cc the city mayor/city manager that you won't shop that particular locale because of these red light cameras (which are only installed within a mile of the concentrated merchant areas), you will have much more effect in getting those cameras taken down. It's happened in cities like Los Angeles... you would think that with such a car culture, the city could take advantage of a "target rich environment". But the numbers do not work - and they know it. Now - so do you.

The technology used to issue the citations could, instead, be used to make the intersections work better. Unless traffic is extremely heavy, it's best to clear the intersection from each direction before allowing the next set of vehicles to begin moving. In my city, they installed optical sensors to replace the road-embedded sensors, and they were doing a really good job of keeping traffic moving. Then they put up red-light cameras, and at one particular intersection they put the lights on a regular (short) cycle instead of leaving it alone. This ensured that drivers would be frustrated at having to wait through several cycles and be tempted to run the lights.

After the citizens demanded the cameras be removed, the city complied. Unfortunately, that particular intersection still has short-cycling lights, and is often backed up over a block in one direction, and all the way onto a highway exit in another. They forgot that they had it right before.

Every motorist in California or visiting needs to know about Snitch Tickets, the fake/phishing red light camera tickets sent out by California police to bluff the registered owner into identifying the actual driver of the car. There's a lot of these fake tickets; some cities - Hayward is an example - mail out more Snitch Tickets than real tickets. Snitch Tickets have not been filed with the court, so they don't say "Notice to Appear," don't have the court's addr. and phone #, and usually say (on the back, in small letters), "Do not contact the court about this notice." Since they have NOT been filed with the court, they have no legal weight whatsoever. You can ignore a Snitch Ticket. If in doubt, Google the term. And once you understand how tricky a Snitch Ticket is, tell your friends who live in or visit California about them, so that they won't get tricked.

Also, a REAL camera ticket from ANY city in LA County can be ignored, as the LA courts do not report ignored tickets to the DMV. (This was revealed in multiple LA Times articles last summer. It is applicable ONLY to cities in LA county.)

In VA all corners of all intersections with cameras must have signs of the right size and color. It isn't the cameras, it is the threat of a ticket. Nice to know we can train people as easy as mice.

"Driving is a multi-task activity that requires concentration at all times. Drivers have to pay attention to a number of operational and environmental factors."

The fact that the number of rear-end collisions increased when red-light cameras were installed exposes poor driving skills, not some problem with drivers suddenly aware they need to practice increased vigilance about the lights.
As someone said above: driving to closely to the car in front of you increases the risk for a rear-end collision, not the presence of a camera.

As to whether they shortened the yellow-light duration when they installed the camera as a deliberate revenue-raising scheme: easy to find out. Time it with other light where no camera has been installed. If the duration is shorter, call city hall and give 'em curry about it.

Rear-enders are 99% caused by abysmal driving skills. Everyone should know the 2 second rule, and that using any communication device removes concentration from the task at hand - namely driving. I hope those that caused the rear-end accidents were punished to the full extent of the law.

Ok. so the rear ending numbers went up. However was any study made of the number of culprits who were either talking or texting on their cellphones?

A study in UK attributed over 60% of ALL road accidents to use of cell phones while driving. In this situation there should not be a 3 strike rule. The drivers must be penalised on the first strike.

1) See the NMA site (http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/) for the real info on Ticket Cameras of all kinds. These are the same people who fought and won against the national 55mph limit. For example, on red-light cameras :
- They used short yellow light times to generate more tickets even though the drivers were not doing anything unsafe. If a yellow light is too short for the flow of traffic through an intersection, it will create more split-second violations because people won't be able to stop in time. These are not dangerous violations, but they are extremely profitable. Several cities have been caught shortening the yellow light times after installing cameras, but an equally devious trick is when they simply pick an intersection that already has a yellow light time that's too short and put a camera there instead of fixing the actual problem with the intersection. They want your money and don't give a damn about unfair hits to your record or insurance rates.
- Going the other way and lengthening the yellow slightly yields the same or greater improvement in safety and compliance
- The ticket camera companies have been caught numerous times wining and dining local officials to get them to install ticket cameras. These corporate executives have given local government officials and police free vacations and even flat-out bribed them to install cameras.
- They have started sending out tickets for running a red light to vehicles that have simply crossed the stop bar line. These drivers are getting tickets even though they never entered the intersection! Imagine having a ticket for running a red light on your driving record when you actually stopped at the intersection safely. This is particularly deceitful in colder climates where there may be snow and ice covering the road. Drivers are expected to stop behind a line that they can't even see.
- And more...

... would be had the rate of accidents IN the crossroad went up or down after the installation of the cameras compared to the ones before the crossroad and what was their severity compared to rear-end bumping - that the latter went up is obvious.

red light cameras don't make me safer, they make me unhappy. as do tailgeters.

1. install 4" steel pipe rear bumper with protruding trailer hitch. This is for tailgaters.
1a. alternately or additionally use this hitch mounted shock absorbing device, intended to prevent damage to you at the tailgater's expense by keeping them off your vehicle using theirs to absorb the shock. http://www.superbumper.com/ No. it is not awful. having been rearended by illegals with no ID and no insurance and the cop did nothing, I feel no guilt at these suggestions whatsoever.

2. install LCD panel over plates to distort image when going through intersection, beware some cameras don't have a visible flash so a button on the steering wheel may be employed.. Or, there ought to be a kind of clear cover than only lets plates be seen from straight on at low angles. There should be a legal countermeasure, but what?

3. wig and sunglasses while driving. Although it is not legal to wear a disguise in public, those items are 100% legal to wear. Many women wear wigs and some men with bad/no hair as well.

4. a pull-down or otherwise clear looking film in front of the driver that does not block any view but reflects the flash or the camera's point of view. This could mount on the sun visor.