Red Light Runners need some class in Chicago

I doubt classes would help. It isn't like people don't know what red lights mean.

In the survey, there is no mention of "Adjust my driving habits." If a person is caught once, then simply pay the fee. Caught twice, the driver should get the message that he/she needs to adjust their aggressiveness and obey the laws. Red light runners pose a real threat of severe injury or death to other innocent motorists who have as much right on the road as they do. In a lot of cases I believe it boils down to these folks thinking they are more important than anyone else using the roads. Education might be the way to go.

I'm in favor of graded fine schedules. First offense - $100. Second offense - $500. Third offense - $1000. I think that would teach people not to run lights.

I agree with the class or higher fees for repeat offender but you must take into account the circumstances with the ticket.

If you have a family car (different drivers) then who was driving? Forcing the owner to pay higher fee/class is not fair
If car is stolen....owner pays until he can prove otherwise (not always easy).
If plates was stolen......
Turning on Red vs running across intersection..... should be separated?

Don't you htink htre is a difference between running a red light to trying to get through a yellow? I agree about running reds. I see it all the time but to get a ticket for being a second to slow is another story. I would think that would make people speed through the yellows causing more troubles.

I got a Chicago red light violation.

Light turned red while my car was in the middle of the intersection. In Chicago, that is a violation.

That is not fair, but that's just my opinnion.

Only until the fine gets to $1000.00 then they will drive like the light is going to change at any second and be prepared to stop, rather than accelerating through the yellow!

Thats not how the cameras work!

Buried in the asphalt lane, there are two loops of wires through which electricity run called induction loop triggers. Every time the traffic light to which these wire are connected turns red, the camera and computer in the system are activated. One loop in the set detects when your car approaches the intersection, while the other one can tell if you cross the stop line. This happens because the metal of your car disrupts the normal electromagnetic levels of the charged wires. Any shift in the levels serves as a trigger, hence their name. Once triggered, the wires send messages to the traffic computer.

The computer is manned when your crosses the first trigger, at which point it waits to see if you will cross the second while the light is red. Once this happens, it sends a message to the camera to turn on. The camera, which is generally digital, although older models use film cameras, takes a picture just as you cross the stop line and roll into the intersection. This picture captures your car's license plate number. After a short pause, the camera takes a second picture, which catches you inside the intersection. Beyond providing double proof of the traffic violation, this second picture is also used to measure your driving speed. The computer calculates how far the car has traveled in between shots (which occur at set times) to judge if you were speeding on top of running a red light. The computer adds the day and time of the violation, as well as where you were and how fast you were going. Finally, it notes how much time passed between the light turning red and the car's entrance into the intersection.

Each violation photo is sent to the computer's memory bank, where it is stored until collection.

Now pay the ticket!

They are installing these cameras all over Chicago and the surrounding suburbs in Illinois. Its a HUGE revenue income source. Next, they are planning on putting speed cameras up on the roads and highways in the near future.

Welcome to Illinois!

I agree, it is not fair, the red light cameras are just about making money.
JeffSh

There is no such Illinois law AND I don't think that cities have the power to make their own modifications.

Now.....their camera system may not be able to tell the difference.....maybe on purpose ???

OR the "ticket" is not counted as a "real" traffic violation, in which case they may be able to (try to) make up any rules they can get away with.

Virtually EVERYTHING works differently in Chicago !!

AND are you trying to tell us that you somehow have magic powers that allow you to know about EVERY traffic camera made by EVERY company in the WORLD ???

Somehow I doubt it.

Not always Bob! Some cameras will take a picture on every light cycle to capture those that may be in the intersection. DC was notorious for it until the City Council shut it down. The light at 2nd & H NE was out of sync with the light at 4th and H NE. Drivers coming from 4th toward 2nd were constantly being cited for "running the light" when they went through the intersection on green and the 2nd street light cycled to red and then the 4th street light would go red and the camera would tag the stopped car.

The law in Illinois is that you cannot ENTER the intersection when the light is red. If you are already in the intersection when it turns red, there is no violation.

Where you actually are when the light turns red is subject to opinion, of course. I bet that the cop or camera almost always win when there is a difference of opinion on that.

I don't remember saying that I have magic powers, But I know how the cameras in Chicago work, and who runs them!
There are 138 of them run by RedSpeed and Redflex Traffic Systems, more than any other city in the United States. The two companies I speak of below use the method I spoke of in the last post.

At Redspeed the reviewers check a file sent to them for a violation if one is found they send the information along to a senior reviewer who examines the file again. If that person agrees, the file gets forwarded to the respective law enforcement agency, which decides to issue a citation or not.
(RedSpeed likes to say that it only "recommends" citations.)

RedFlex actually processes and mails tickets after the law enforcement agency signs off on them.

In Chicago if your in a intersection and the light is red, you will be reviewed, and cited

So you see theres not magic involved, just reason and the understanding of how things work, even in Chicago.

So like I said Pay the Ticket!

I wasn't "Caught" by a still camera, It was a video camera.

I was even able to view the video online.

Now we are down to the bottom line. As a couple of folks have mentioned already, BEING IN the intersection when the light turns is NOT a violation of State law, not only in Illinios but most other places too..........

SO, how about explaining how Chicago gets away with citeing people for something that is NOT a violation ??

How does Chicago get away with it? You're not from Chicago are you?!?!?!

King Daley needs all the revenue he can get.
The city is broke and overflowing with corruption.
It's the "Chicago Way"!!!

As for saying drivers need to slow down, blah, blah, blah, etc. That red light violation was my first in 17 years. So, not really valid. I would also argue that driving really slow in Chicago is more dangerous than doing the limit or a few miles over.

So, I think it is an agree to disagree for me!!!

No but been REAL close for 60+ years so I know how things work; lie, cheat, steal, break heads......but when there is a video or picture record, I'd think it would be pretty hard to pull off, even for the "experts".

I was in a car in Chicago (not driving) when my friend entered an intersection on the green, waited for the car in front of him to go, and made the left turn. The light changed while in the intersection and we saw the flashes. Lo and behold, he gets a violation sent to him in the mail. He's fighting it, but I doubt he'll win.

In Arizona, the intersection starts at the prolongations of the lateral curb lines. Too many people here are ignorant of this and claim they were in the intersection when the light turned red because they passing the crosswalk. Unfortunately the crosswalks here are outside those prolongations and therefore are not part of the intersection. The cameras here take video and stills that show the light condition before you entered the intersection. At photo enforcement intersections, there is always a painted line on the street to show the start of the intersection. Is it the same in Chicago? I'm curious as to where Illinois defines the start of an intersection. If you were clearly outside of that point when the light was still yellow, then I agree with you that you got an erroneous ticket. If you were convicted of the violation unjustly, then you should appeal the conviction.If the kind of corruption you talk of is happening, the only way to change it is to fight it publicly.

A couple of weeks away and I find myself agreeing with BobDee???

And let's not forget, Under Illinois State Law, HB 4835, the registered owner of the vehicle is liable for any automated traffic law violations that occur to the vehicle, regardless of who is operating it.

So complain and whine all you like, if your blocking the Box and the camera snaps your car, your going to pay.

So do what you Like, but when you get flashed, Pay up.

A local town installed red light cameras and operated them on an experimental basis (no tickets issued) for a period. The city was shocked at how many tickets would have been issued. It was suggested that the yellow light was too short for a large intersection.

I never saw a final reports of what happened then. Did they change the yellow light time or just issue more tickets?

That's just the same claim over again. What is "blocking the box"? If that means what I think it does, then State law specifically covers that and it is NOT a violation of anything.

So, you have yet to explain how they charge you with a "violation" when no law has been broken.

Or let's rephrase it a bit.....they can "charge" you with any stupid thing they want; the real question is how they can make it stand up and force you to PAY when it clearly is NOT a violation.

I'm not an attorney but I did stay at a Holiday Inn. And according to Cleveland traffic code it is illegal to block an intersection.

431.33 Obstructing Intersection, Crosswalk or Grade Crossing

No driver shall enter an intersection or marked crosswalk or drive onto any railroad grade crossing unless there is sufficient space on the other side of the intersection, crosswalk or grade crossing to accommodate the vehicle he is operating without obstructing the passage of other vehicles, pedestrians or railroad trains, notwithstanding any traffic control signal indication to proceed.

Isn't it interesting that driving schools tell us that the lead car waiting to turn left at an intersection should proceed to the center line and wait for an opening . . .

Having said that; They issue citations to anyone and everyone, because they KNOW that the vast majority of recipients of these 'performance awards' will fume, but blindly pay them.

Several years ago I was tagged in a police operation for 'passing on the right', which in my jurisdiction is a violation of the traffic code.

The issue was that I was aproaching a traffic circle on the service road of an 'expressway'. There are 3 lanes to the service road, the rightmost has an turnoff that allows drivers to bypass the rotary, but was (and remains, to this day 8 years later) the feeder for the right lane of the access to the rotary. That traffic exitnig the highway tries to cut across all of the traffic on the sevrice road to get to the bypass is another story.

So, in essence the middle and left lanes are forced to merge with traffic exiting the highway, which of course is a recipe for a traffic tie up every rush hour.

I couldn't effectively avoid the circle because my office was on the other side of it. So for 10 years I have gotern off the highway miles ahead of the exit and approached the intersection on the service road.

Every morning I passed a mile or two of stopped vehicles looking to merge (most of those preferred to change into the right lane at the last minute, which was a serious poblem for me one day when a driver of a truck decided he had more right to change into my lane than I had to occupy it and deliebrately rammed my car - but that is another story).

One day the police set up an operation and hauled those of us who approached the intersection from the right lane over and handed out several hundred (I seem to recall it was 273) tickets, each for $350 plus 3 demerit points).

I challenged the ticket on the grounds that passing on the right implied that the traffic on the left was actually moving - and that by the logic of the ticket, no one could ever pass through an intersection if someone was waiting to turn left in the left lane.

After waiting a few months I was summonsed to court and I and 8 or so other people, all of whom challenged their tickets were met by the prosecutor and handed documents indicating the charges were summarily dropped.

Traffic continues to work the same way at that intersection, yer the police have NEVER been back. That alone says that the experiment was a failure.

The point is that this was clearly a manufactured ticket - there was no violation. I know of one person who paid his fine and took the points - the city did NOT refund her money and for that single rush-houer they collected about $100,000.

If EVERYONE challenged the ticket, the city wuold have lost money on the deal.

But we're mainly a society of sheep.

If a huge percentahge of drivers would protest, the courts would be so completely clogged that the city would NEVER see their revenue.

And THAT, is probably the best way to resolve the problem - the public should challenge each and every ticket.

Do you understand yet ka1167?
need another example?
http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/06/23/dont-block-the-box-bil...

Correct, then turn left and not block the box (intersection). Only a inconsiderate fool would do that, and stop cross traffic.
The rest of your post has nothing to do with blocking the box!

This P***ing contest is going nowhere.

It is YOU that doesn't seem to understand.
The action we are talking about is NOT illegal in Illinois; it just simple is NOT.

If you are the FIRST car in the intersection AND you are in a left turn only lane, you are "in the box" but are not "blocking" anything while your light is green AND you are still not blocking anything when your light turns RED.....if you complete your turn in a timely fashion before the opposing traffic has a chance to get going.

NOW......if you are the second or subsequent car in the left turn line that is stopped, I can see how it would be proper to consider that a violation.

The message that started this did not specify why he was already IN the intersection, what lane he was in or whether on not he was moving at the time.
Things have been ASSumed that probably are not true.

He might have been guilty of blocking but certainly NOT guilty of a "red light" violation......which is the only thing the cameras are authorized to deal with, as far as I know.

To be guilty of "blocking", there must be some other traffic that is "blocked" and I doubt the cameras have a wide enough field of view to determine that.

I quit. Pointless.

Did they have *only one* photo of you in the middle of the intersection with a red light? It takes two time-lapse photos or a video to prove a red-light violation, and if all they have is one with you in the middle of the intersection with no other proof of where you were just before the light turned red, I would contest the ticket, because you're absolutely right: in Illinois, it is legal to enter an intersection before the light has turned red even if you have not cleared it when it does turn red.

While it is illegal to block intersections here in Illinois, it is not considered blocking the intersection to move into the middle of it on a green light (assuming there is no red left turn arrow) while waiting to turn left. (Blocking is failing to clear the intersection right after the light changes.) Most Chicago traffic-lit intersections do not have left turn arrows. If you didn't pull in to wait, in many intersections, you'd never be able to turn left.

most I see are not even taking the chance of entering the intersection (to yield on a left turn) when there is a red light camera present. I can't say that I blame them. Every time I am behind one of those individuals; I stay patient and not honk my horn

Is it me or are people getting more and more aggressive in there driving habits. Are people more uptight these days or what?

This is a perfect example of a very negative effect of red light cameras. The purpose of street cameras is to have a more efficient intersection while maintaining traffic safety. This is an example of an effect of how a red light camera decreases the efficiency gained by installing lights. While we're at decreasing efficiency, let's just go ahead and replace all the traffic lights with stop signs and do 2 and 4 way stops for every intersection.