1,740 red-light-camera tickets dismissed

 

League City, Texas will dismiss 1,740 red-light-camera tickets and issue refunds because the traffic light at the Gulf Freeway and FM 518 hasn't been staying yellow long enough.

http://www.ultimateclearlake.com/2010/03/yellow-lights

That's gotta hurt

a city's cash flow to have to pay back what they already collected and no doubt spent.

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260, 295W, 1490T,2455LMT

shocked

that yet another city was caught stealing money from the citizens while pretending it's all about "safety".

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___________________ Garmin 2455, 855, Oregon 550t

Good thing

they didn't execute the offenders. It is Texas.

Another victory for red-light cameras

Seems to me that the opponents of red-light cameras will read this a victory for their side. However, if you follow the link and read the article you will find the following.

A citizen complained that the yellow interval at the light was not properly set.

The police forwarded the complaint to the Texas Dept of Transportation.

The interval was checked and found to be short.

The police reviewed the tickets and found all drivers that were below what the light timing should have been and refunded those tickets.

Loss of revenue, yes. Proper action, yes.

lol and then the state has

lol and then the state has to pay the postage for 1,740 envelopes.. so that is $0.44 x 1,740 = $765.60 lol just to mail those back .. LOL someone defintly getting fired over that fiasco

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DriveSmart 50, DriveSmart 60, nuvi 2595, nuvi 3760,

everything is big in TX. lol

everything is big in TX. lol

Quote: Texas: Short Yellow

Quote:

Texas: Short Yellow Brings $130,500 In Red Light Camera Refunds

League City, Texas has lost $130,500 in red light camera ticket refunds and cancellations after a local motorist discovered the city had been ignoring state law. Byron Schirmbeck drives through the intersection of Interstate 45 and FM 518 every day on the way to work. He noticed the amount of yellow time given to motorists seemed a bit on the short side, so he decided to check. Armed with a stopwatch, Schirmbeck clocked the interval between the green and red lights at just four seconds -- 0.7 seconds shorter than the minimum required under Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) regulations at an intersection with a posted 50 MPH speed limit.

A study by the Texas Transportation Institute found that violations jumped 110 percent when yellow light timing was reduced by one second under the bare minimum amount (view study). Conversely, the addition of one second beyond the bare minimum yielded a 40 percent collision reduction. The doubling of violations, and revenue, is what attracted Australia's Redflex Traffic Systems, which runs the photo enforcement program, to the intersection.

"The camera company installed cameras here like they have done elsewhere where they knew they could take advantage of the poor engineering and short yellow change intervals," Schirmbeck told TheNewspaper. "Instead of fixing the problem and seeing what effect that has they choose to profit from a dangerous situation."

Schirmbeck was impressed by the honest and swift response of Chief Michael Jez to his emailed complaint. Jez immediately called in Redflex and TxDOT to investigate. After TxDOT agreed with Schirmbeck, Jez ordered the refund or cancellation of every ticket issued between October 1 and March 4 while the light should have been yellow -- a total of 1740 tickets worth $130,500. Schirmbeck was less impressed by the lack of oversight that led to the problem in the first place.

Read the rest at http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/30/3074.asp

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What they should have done

What they should have done is claimed triple the amount that had to be refunded from Redflex. If the camera company was responsible for triple damages on any light cameras that weren't in accordance with the law I bet you'd see all the lights properly timed real quick.

I don't think it's the

I don't think it's the camera company that sets the timing of the lights. That's definitely down to the city.

However, these camera companies do extensive testing and measurements on a bunch of different intersections before they make a final decision on where the cameras are going to go. You can be sure that the camera company knew 100% that the lights were times badly at that intersection and didn't tell the city about it. You can guarantee that that's why they chose that particular intersection in the first place - because the timing was bad they knew it would generate a high numbers of runners.

If I were the city, sure I would be questioning my traffic engineers, but I'd also be questioning the camera company too to see why they didn't advise me of the timning issue at the beginning.