Red Light Cameras, Your Frustration, and Why They Save Lives

The has been all over the news here tonight too. The thing is that in my city the accidents and fatalities at red light intersections have actually gone up.

Rlc are profit from the very beginning. Until Red light violators are asses point against their license it will be always for profit! That why the city that use them always told us. their is no point against your licenses just give them your Hard earn money! Just like us the city need to feed their family.

If you read the article, take a look at the "related story" at the bottom of the page. This related story describes the 10 most dangerous cities.

Interestingly, 2 of the ten have red light cameras - Baltimore MD and Austin TX.

I point this out because - even though I am for Automated Traffic Enforcement - just implementing ATE does not always result in safety improvement. I hope that there will be some reporting on Baltimore and Austin that will speak to why they are so dangerous.

I wonder why Boston, MA didn't make the list, maybe the bad drivers moved to NH or ME. It would be interesting to see the data and how they weighted some of the factors.

Be fair and balanced. Don't overlook reports which raise serious issues as to the validity of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports and government studies purporting to find positive correlations for redlight cameras and accidents.

If you are interested, you can check out Dick Armey's staff report, "The Red-Light-Running Crisis: Is It Intentional?", and 15 or so other reports raising issues here: http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/studies.

I don't know where all this will wind up; but, in the meantime, keep your windmill turning and your gps loaded with up-to-date redlight and speed camera information.

They moved to Providence, RI. The proof is in the fact Providence has RLCs and Taxachusetts doesn't. All kidding aside, I believe that's because there is a law in place that forbids photo enforcement cameras within the borders of Taxachusetts.

The closest RLC is about a mile from my house, I drive by couple times a day and this is what I have observed while stopped at the crossing intersection from the RLC.

The RLC is flashing just about on every RL cycle and this is what triggers the flash most of the time, cars in middle lanes stopping on yellow beyond the white line but not crossing the intersection; cars making a right on red and not stopping behind the white line before proceeding to make the turn; cars creeping in on the middle of the intersection while the light is red in preparation to make a fast left turn ahead of incoming traffic.

I have only seen a handful of actual red light runners, but no accidents.

Take a look at the following link. Follow the instructions for homicides locations in Baltimore City. I wonder how many homicides took place near a red light camera location?

http://essentials.baltimoresun.com/micro_sun/homicides/

followed the instructions but did not want to take the time to plot the homicides versus red light cameras from our file.

Interesting question though/