Not all of these red light cameras are revenue-collection gimmicks. In San
Francisco there is a notorious intersection where a short freeway ramp dumps
onto a city street right into the intersection of two 4-lane one-way
streets. The drivers on one of the streets, in typical fashion, were
streaming through the yellows in packs. Consequently, the "tail-end
charlies" who went through on the red were getting picked off by cars
exiting the freeway and hitting the street at 50+ mph (on their green
light). The ensuing carnage caused a public outcry, and led to the
highly-publicized installation of red light cameras, which did lead to a
reduction in accidents.
One message I derived from this story is this: the general impression that
careless, thoughtless and negligent driving is on the increase, is indeed
true. My reasoning is that this intersection has been in its current
configuration for at least 20, and possibly 40 or more years. Yet the
accident rate due to red light runners only became critical in the last 3 or
4 years. FWIW....
on 8/23/02 9:01 AM, Ajhsys@aol.com at Ajhsys@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 8/23/02 9:04:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> steve@coastaldatasystems.com writes:
>
>
>> No yellow light will only last one second (35 mph is approx 50' per
>> second). Use a reasonable example. The ones I've seen are more like five
>> seconds minimum. You would have to be more than 250' to be caught by the
>> red. Of course, if you are ignoring the speed limit, things start
>> getting a bit tighter.
>>
>
> - - - - - - - - - - -
>
> According to the article I read, a city in Arizone was making LOADS of money
> off of tickets based on a red light camera where the yellow was set at 3
> seconds. They extended the yellow to 4.7 seconds and revenues dropped so
> much, they had to stop using the camera. People simply didn't have enough
> time to stop on red when the yellow was only 3 seconds.
>
> Allen Hefner
> SCCA Philly Region Rally Steward
> '77 Midget
> '75 Midget "The Project"
> '92 Mitsubishi Expo LRV Sport
>
--
Max Heim
'66 MGB GHN3L76149
If you're near Mountain View, CA,
it's the primer red one with chrome wires
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