Redwood City, California was forced to admit

They know it has nothing but a cash grab, if anything it may increase collissions.

Since, I think I am the one who you meant, I will jump in.

While a number of your statements (dedicated lanes, etc) have nothing to do with the discussion of stopping at a red light , your list mostly makes sense for "proceeding" through a red-light versus purposely "blowing" through the red-light because of a perceived "life and death" issue.

I suppose most of us have had the experience of "proceeding" through a light which had malfunctioned and was stuck on red against our line of traffic. Most of us stopped and then proceeded with caution - just like the legal turn-right-on-red maneuver.

Were you suggesting any of these as a reason for "blowing" through a red light at speed without any attempt to stop when others around you were stopping?

I think it is clear at this point that red light and speed cameras are equally about governmental revenue as they are with driver safety.

Even though I am a proponent of Automated Traffic Enforcement, I think that revenue clearly plays a role once installed.

Not every trip to the hospital is a medical emergency. If, however, on a trip to a hospital, a traffic light WON'T CHANGE, then yeah, I think going through a red light is a viable option. A red light camera will not be able to determine the reason for going through the light, now will it? A ticket would be issued, just as it would for any other person crossing that red light threshold. It's not about luck, it's about common sense. Just as an emergency driver would be held responsible, so would a driver of a car going to a hospital.

No matter how you define it, if you GO THROUGH a red light at a red light camera intersection, you get a ticket. You specifically asked,

"Just might some of the situations be?"

Examples are being given, and they are rejected.

A red light camera will do one thing, and one thing only. It will record a vehicle going through a red light. It doesn't matter when the vehicle enters the intersection, as long as the light is red, it will record the incident. If you stop, then proceed, it will snap a picture of the car going through the intersection, just the same as if you don't stop. So how does all of this, proceeding, running, blowing make any difference?

I avoided a severe rear end collision not long ago by driving onto the other side of the road (a busy four lane road). I made a quick inventory of the oncoming traffic and knew without a doubt the car behind was not going to get stopped in time. I floored it and the car still grazed me. I am sure I am not the only one this sort of thing has happened to. I broke the law to avoid a broken body. Had there been a camera at this intersection I would have been ticked. Probably for two violations... left of center and failure to yield.

If at first you don't succeed, try again. So I will.

I did not reject your examples. I pointed out that several were not violations and cited the dedicated lanes example you gave.

I pointed out that others had to do with proceeding thru the intersection (for example, already in it - perhaps a left turn). I did not realize that I should have complimented you on the one for the funeral (or other) procession - as this is certainly valid for "proceeding" thru the intersection. I assumed that you had already read my favorable comments on getting out of the way of emergency vehicles.

Still, I thought I had already granted you reasons for "proceeding" through a red light.

but, then I wanted to get back to the discussion we had been having for a while in this thread and that wss a challenge to others to think of a good reason for "blowing" through a red-light. So I asked you --

I had anticipated that you would say that the "- Fleeing acts of aggression during war time." example would apply. If you had, I would have and still do grant that reason to be valid (although we all hope it does not apply to Redwood City)

Would you answer the previous question? Do any other of your cited reasons apply to the "blowing" through discussion?

I think you're getting me and Hawaiian Flyer mixed up. I'm sorry that I'm not responding to questions you proposed to him.

The only beef I have is, you defining the difference of going through a red light, as running, proceeding, etc. There is no difference. If you go through a red light, it can be called many different things, but it's all the same.

I'm glad things turned out okay for you. I'm sorry if some don't agree that to avoid an accident, sometimes laws have to be broken. It makes sense to me if the consequences of following the law far outweigh the consequences of breaking them.

A few years ago I was first in line stopped at a red light. Happened to look in my rear view mirror and saw a approaching vehicle coming at me from behind at what seemed to be a little bit faster speed than what was needed.

The driver was leaned over and distracted trying to find something they had just dropped on the passengers side of the floor. My mind made up the fact (through many years of driving) that if the situation continued to play out as it was, I was going to get rear ended.

I quickly looked right and left both ways, hit my horn and blew the "RED" light. Fortunately two things happened with hearing my horn sounding. First it alerted other drivers who also were stopped at the "RED" light.. and two: it also woke up (so to speak) the distracted driver speeding from behind me to slam on their brakes, which in turn caused them to slide into my just unoccupied space.

Of course, using your theory, I should have just sat there at the "RED" light and become another accident statistic.

-------------------

A few months ago where I live, there was a news report about a road rage incident in which a driver was shooting a someone while following them in his vehicle. The pickup being shot at was able to finally get away by speeding and blowing a couple of "RED" lights and stop signs. Fortunately through witnesses and other evidence the road rage driver was caught and punished. No charges were ever brought against the pick up driver for the speeding or "RED" light infractions.

Sorry.. I forgot. I guess it it would have been better if he had been shot and "KILLED", instead of blowing a couple of "RED" lights!!

Obeying the law isn't always the better part of valor, or what it's made out to be.. is it..!!..?

--------------------

Nuvi1300(Where doing the right thing isn't always the right thing to do.)WTGPS

Read my above post to "jgermann".. and tell me that it was wrong doing what was done..!! I guess it's always better to obey the law then than to use some sort of common sense in certain situations.

Nuvi1300WTGPS

As I understand your personal example, you were stopped at a red light.

The gist of this thread has been people trying to come up with good reasons for "blowing" thru a red light. I think all of us who have been asking the question already knew that there were reasons for doing something that would otherwise get you a ticket at a Automated Traffic Enforcement (ATE) monitored light.

However, our purpose has been and still is to demonstrate that the reasons are very specific to particular situations. Your road rage incident cited being an excellent example.

As I have said before - and was taken to task - too many people opposed to ATE (primarily on emotional grounds, I suppose) "cavalierly" (meaning carelessly and without proper thought) say that there are numerous good reasons why someone should "blow" a red-light (and by implication, not get ticketed).

As you have helped demonstrate, the reasons are not easy to come up with.

Since I think this was directed at me, I will respond.

Twix, you misunderstand all of us who have been asking for examples of reasons to "blow" a red light. We never said or implied that there were not any; we indicated that they were not as easy to come up with as seemed to be the sense of many people, perhaps including yourself.

It has not been easy to come up with "numerous" examples, has it?

Sorry jgermann.. didn't mean to offend you if it was taken that way. It wasn't done with that purpose in mind. I guess I read your post to fast and didn't take the time to consider it otherwise.

I'm not here to rankle other peoples feathers.. so I hope the above will still keep us on friendly terms. At least (if I feel I've made a mistake), I'm willing to publicly apologize for it.

Thanks for your response to my post.

Nuvi 1300 (Who sometimes puts his foot into his mouth.) WTGPS

Thanks for the post. I was not offended by your examples.

I should have been clearer that you had given several excellent examples - as have a few others. Clearly, there are good reasons

You presented two.

I speak only for myself but anyone that trusts government with collecting money in cahoots with a for profit company is crazy. People shouldn't run red lights but if one city is caught playing with the timing of lights how many don't get caught?
If it truely has nothiing to do with money and only safety then let the cities that believe in them buy and maintain them and all money collected must be given to charity. Not like it is now where the for profit company and the city have every incentive in the world to manipulate timing of lights to increase revenue.

I've said that many times, to no avail. To this day most cities won't fess up to the fact it's a money grab, not an attempt to increase public safety. Wish I could find it, but I read a great article a while back about high school kids making clones of their teachers plates then running RLC's on purpose.

Would the money going to schools be acceptable? Perhaps used on reducing the carbon footprint of the city by buying electric vehicles? (we have electric shuttles in our downtown to carry visitors between attractions)

Electric vehicles don't necessarily reduce the carbon footprint. The pollution from the vehicle is shifted to increased output from the power generation site.

true in most situations - we have a lot nuclear in our area.

You're not the only one that might not agree with going through a red light. I didn't say "someone." I wish you would have responded to my other post, where I quoted you and was directing what I was saying at you.

You specifically asked for examples. It wasn't an endeavor to show it's not easy to come up with some.

I appologize for not answering your previous post directly. I thought it was specific to me and I did work on an answer offline. I was having to go back through the thread to make sure that I was dealing with your comments and not someone else's. Otherwise you might chide me again.

I need to search my computer to find what I have already done.

That said, I do not understand the comment

I was asking for situations where "running a red light is the thing to do". I was endeavoring, as were some others. to show that the "cavalier" response of many red-light camera opponents that there are "numerous good" reasons for doing so is a false statement. Regardless of what you assumed, and as I have said before, I always knew of some (the funeral procession being the one I would have offered).

Be back to you later.

Funeral processions are permitted by law in New York State, but participants do not have permission to drive through red lights. They must comply with all traffic laws at all times; there is no exception for funeral processions in the NYS Vehicle and Traffic Law.

That being said, it is widely believed by many that the opposite is true, and funeral directors have not acted to educate drivers. They are headed for a rude awakening when a funeral procession proceeds past a red light camera! There are many routes with multiple red light cameras where funeral processions are common.

The same law permits a driver to proceed past a malfunctioning traffic signal after making a full stop, when it is safe to proceed. This seems to cover the situation where the signal is controlled only by a sensor which may not detect a motorcycle, etc.

dobs108

I mean, Californians seem happy enough to amend the California Constitution for anything and everything else . . .

Anyone ever heard of any attempts to RLCs in the Golden State?

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/31/3167.asp

It seems to have gotten busy in here while I was gone

Clearly I count differently. Looks numerous to me. I stand by speculation. Prejudicative is probably a better word, but speculation will do.

"Prejudicative" is not a word that I know. Would you point me to a definition on the web, please.

"Numerous" seems most often to be defined as "amounting to a large indefinite number"

Before I go back and count the number of reasons - and I think one criteria was "morally acceptable" - would you give me some "number" (like 20 or 50 or whatever) that you would agree would be appropriate for "numerous"?

I think most people would agree that most of the situations were one-off types - like the truck blowing its horn because it was in a skid in a snowstorm and the person stopped at the red-light proceeded through the red-light to get out of its way. Then there were the "life and death" reasons like someone chasing you firing a gun at you; and, in war time to get away from the enemy.

Gosh, just thinking about it, I suppose we could come up with lots of variations of these situations by varying the details like changing gun for flamethrower and such.

But maybe, I ought to ask you to recall those situations that you, or other readers, are likely to encounter in your lifetime and list them for the readers. Surely, your list would help them to know particular situations which, if they occurred and if they were ticketed, would be appropriately taken into court so they would be dismissed.

Thanks in advance for providing this service to the readers of this thread.

Good Lord. My tax dollars may go to holding your hand, but I have a choice whether or not I do.

In this instance, I pass.

A lot of these camaras are set up to catch cars not coming to a complete stop before making a right hand turn (California Roll). Even though it is often completly safe and much better for traffic flow to do so.
It's a complete cash grab for cities and has little to do with safety. Since cities are making so much money with these camaras more and more cities are jumping on the bandwagon.
They're coming to Vancouver, Canada soon.

I apologize to readers other than twix in advance. There is nothing new in this post so others might want to just skip over it.

Nuvi1300WTGPS got the discussion started by saying “there are some situations and circumstances where running a red light is better than if you didn't!” Then I quoted nuvi1300wtgps and asked “Just might some of the situations be?”

camerabob came up with the situation “It's snowing, and the trucker behind you with a full load is sliding towards you laying on the horn....”. I responded to that by asking about other options to actually running the red-light like pulling off the road or changing lanes. I talked about the fact that we would probably get caught by those who would narrow the situation down to eliminate alternatives (and that was exactly what happened - I suppose because those people could not think of another good alternative and wanted to press me on the snowstorm one).

I did tell camerabob that his was a good one - although others pointed out that a snowstorm in California was not very likely.

Then pwohlrab commented “So there is no snow in CA. How about you have a green light and as you approach it turns yellow. For a split second you think you can stop yet the vehicle behind you is tailgating you. Do you think that person can stop? maybe? maybe not? The intersection is clear because you are driving defensively and have already planned that you will run the red because the other driver can't stop. Hopefully the red light camera has taken a video showing both cars.”

That was a reasoned example involving someone who was driving “defensively” and because of that already knew the intersection ahead was clear. AND, the observation was made that the video might show the reason why the first driver got out of the way.

I quickly responded “OK, I'll give you half a point on this one because of your comment on ‘defensive driving’. ”. And, the reason I gave half a point was articulated by rkaufmann87.

rkaufmann87 commented on pwohlrab’s reply by saying “Kind of a far fetched scenario however possible. The only thing I can point at is if one was really being a defensive driver why didn't they simply change lanes to give room to the tail gaiter, that intersection has adequate lanes. I would think if you had a enough time to make an evaluation of someone being too close AND no one in the intersection you should have changed lanes prior to evaluating the intersection”

Then, not unexpectedly, twix commented that my alternatives to getting out of the way of the sliding, horn-blowing truck were not valid and specifically said “Getting off to the side of the road while it's snowing is not a valid maneuver either. There would be no traction, and it would probably cause the accident to happen anyway.” Now, my experience has been that, when I have found myself sliding in snow, my solution has been to get off the pavement onto the shoulder where there is traction and I will have control. I did not comment because I would have expected twix to have narrowed the situation down to big ditches or retaining walls or whatever and debating along those lines would not have been productive.

My reasoning was correct because indeed twix then quoted rkaufmann87’s reply and responded with the not unexpected narrowing of the parameters: “No one set the parameters of the intersection of this hypothetical situation, so how can you assume that a person would be able to change lanes? There are instances where this happens on a two lane road. How do you change lanes at that point?”

Perhaps twix was still unable to come up with any reasons of his own and wanted to press on with the situation then before us which had to do with avoiding being tail-gated by getting out of the way - with twix wanting to set parameters such that the only solution was to run or proceed through the red light.

camerabob came back in to reply to other poster’s comments on the “snow” situation. He observed that the request for example was not limited to Redwood City, California and I jumped back in to his defense - saying that I was indeed looking at the “general” situation. I added “What the answer illustrated to me was that it is not that easy to come up with a reason why one should run a red light. Note that many camera opponents use such an argument because they are out of factual reasons to object.”

Twix came back with “Red light cameras are all about safety, are they not? In the name of safety, to avoid an accident, sometimes it is necessary to blow a red light in order not to be hit by someone behind you. It's not far fetched, and it is a valid reason. If I were ever to get a ticket in that situation, I'd gladly pay the fine because it would be a lot cheaper than all the aggravation that goes along with an accident. Avoiding injury and loss of life is what red cameras are all about, right? I'm all about that too, but I realize each situation is different. It's not all black or white, or red or yellow. Red light cameras are either or. Either you go through a red, or you don't. It doesn't care why you go through.”

While his “Red light cameras are all about safety, are they not?” beginning comment seemed a little argumentative to me, the rest of the comment was fairly reasoned (although it would have been stronger if he had left out the “Avoiding injury and loss of life is what red cameras are all about, right?” question).

I was surprised that twix would have used the phraseology “sometimes it is necessary to blow a red light in order not to be hit by someone behind you” because the “blow” seemed to lock his vehicle into traveling at speed making it hard to stop. Regardless, “blowing a red light” now was clearly now the situation being discussed.

Since twix had been trying to narrow down the parameters of the “snow” situation, I thought he might grant me the privilege to do the same to him with the purpose being to make him think about the fact that his making a decision to avoid being tail-gated might lead to loss of life. I set up the situation where there was a vehicle already in the intersection ahead who would be making a left turn in front of him and, also, there was a pedestrian on the right across the intersection who was waiting to cross in front of him immediately when the light turned.

Naturally, we got into discussion about “rules of the road” for the left turning vehicle - who I suppose would have to wait for twix to “blow” the red light before getting out of the intersection. Twix never acknowledged the pedestrian.

I have to give twix credit before proceeding. I had asked him if he had read the #13 post. I wish I were able to say that I had done that just to see if twix would go back and do his own count, but that was not the case. I just miscounted.

Anyway, after several back and forths about “rules of the road” on the left turning vehicle twix was risking t-boning, twix finally came up with an example of his own. He said:“I thought of another reason to blow a red light. Taking someone to the hospital. I had to do that once because the light wouldn't change. I did not get a ticket, but if it was a red light camera, I would have.” Note the use of the word “blow” again.

By the way, in the same post as his example, twix had added the parameter of “life and death” situations.

I responded that I had been anticipating that someone would offer the “hospital” situation. I noted that twix - in his personal example - had not added that he had followed the example of emergency vehicles who have on their flashing lights and are honking their horn (which is, of course, somewhat like the initial “snow” situation”). Some emergency vehicle driver came into the discussion to say that emergency vehicles are supposed to follow the rules of the road and said the same should be true for someone taking another person to the hospital. Their experience said that doing so would make it more likely to reach the hospital safely.

As an aside - I had made the comment to twix that “Still, what you and I are demonstrating for those reading this thread is that the cavalier approach of saying that there are numerous reasons why it is OK to run a redlight are just a weak defense mechanism of those who oppose red light cameras.”This caused JD4x4 to say: “I think the 'cavalier approach' and 'weak defense mechanism of those who oppose' is speculation on the reader's part.

Now that we have established that there are indeed safe ways and acceptable (moral, if not legal) reasons to go through a red or yellow light, the fact remains that a robotic camera makes no distinctions. Those espousing that viewpoint may indeed 'oppose' cameras in that regard, while still conceding that they have some benefit. 'Some' is also relative to the reader's actual belief.”

I responded that “Let's see - how many morally acceptable reasons have we established for running a red-light? There are a couple - but certainly not "numerous" reasons. Did you count them differently?”

I used “morally acceptable” as a paraphrase of JD4x4’s “safe ways and acceptable (moral, if not legal) reasons to go through a red or yellow light” statement, and of course, someone questioned me on what I meant by “morally acceptable”. Somehow “free will” got into the discussion, which was not something I wanted to debate.

Then twix came back “What previous scenario? I thought we were talking about the semi/full load/snow hypothetical situation? I wasn't changing any parameters. I would think if someone were to full on stop in front of a semi, they could die. Is that not life or death?”

Having spent so much time debating with twix about the left-turning vehicle “rules of the road”, I hardly knew how to respond to his What previous scenario? question - especially when twix followed up with two more lengthy replies (making three in a row)

Note that in one of these posts, twix answered his own question by saying “You're the one that changed the original example. You can throw in whatever "what ifs" you want. Doesn't mean that we're all going to focus on what you've decided is happening in the pretend scenario.”

HawaiianFlyer came into the discussion by saying - “Here are some of my favorite reasons, I seem to remeber [sic], when to proceed through an intersection when the light is illuminated red”. All of his reasons made sense to “Oh...for those who are perpetually naive, I will not elaborate.” - of course, meaning me. However good his reasons were, they - except in a few instances - were not responsive to the debate twix and I were having about “blowing” a red light.

Having used the term “blowing” himself, twix wanted to try to adjust the parameters again to fit his liking. He said “examples are being given and they are being rejected”. Since twix had only given the one “hospital” example, I assumed that he was including HawaiianFlyer’s examples in what he said I was rejecting. Although twix makes the statement that I was confusing him and HawaiianFlyer, I did not think I was.

Nuvi1300WTGPS came in with a personal example of being “stopped” at a red light and then encountering a situation much like the “snow” situation which started the discussion. He also added a “road rage” reason for “blowing a couple of ‘RED ‘ lights and stop signs” - certainly a reason to run a red light.

Again twix directs something at me by saying “You're not the only one that might not agree with going through a red light. I didn't say "someone." I wish you would have responded to my other post, where I quoted you and was directing what I was saying at you. You specifically asked for examples. It wasn't an endeavor to show it's not easy to come up with some.”

Since. all along, I thought I was endeavoring to show it's not easy to come up with some examples, I was not at all sure what twix’s point was and to what I had not responded.

Anyway, twix, this is my response to you and I apologize to other readers for the length of the post.

I'm sorry, I couldn't read all of that. I didn't need a play by play of this discussion. All I needed was clarification of a couple of posts where you confused me with Hawaiian Flyer.