Red Light Cameras Ticketing Drivers Who Stop at Lights

That wasn't an attack, but okay! HA HA!

The "attack" was actually a response to you about my over-exaggeration. Furthermore, where is at least one other "attack" from someone other than myself, against red light cameras? So yeah, it didn't happen, but you can go ahead and take credit for it.

Here's hoping that one day, you do get a ticket. The fact that you say you have YET to get a ticket, indicates you know it's only a matter of time. That's how cool red light cameras are. They don't discriminate against people, whether they support them or not.

The problems these RLC create is not limited to the tickets they generate.

I agree with stopping for red lights, so no sympathy will be coming from my direction for those paying a penalty. For those against RLCs, what would you suggest as an alternative solution to have people stop at red lights instead of running through? Many times I have had difficulty going on green because someone else feels they have the "right" to go through on red. I don't believe it is cost-effective to station a trooper at every red light, taxes would have to go even higher than they are now to support that.

Since I don't really see a better solution, it appears that RLCs are the best option we have available.

I have seen many of those receiving a ticket from a camera for right turn violations sail right through the red light during the all red clearing time because they didn't want to wait for the traffic which has the right of way to go across the intersection. From the posts here, many try to justify their action by stating something along the lines of there wasn't any traffic in the intersection nor where there pedestrians. But to agree with you, the law does require a full and complete stop before proceeding and they know if they stopped, they would have to wait - and that's what they want to avoid.

I fully expect as the weather warms we'll begin to see "undercover" officers in crosswalks and their partners stopping drivers for failure to yield to a pedestrian.

If I am traveling 30MPH and com upon a red light camera intersection and am within 50 feet of the intersection and the light turns yellow and they fixed it to be a short yellow and I don't want to take a chance of it turning red and getting an expensive ticket what should I do. I will tell you. I am going to slam on the brakes. But if I slide over the line and still get a ticket is that fair? Should I slow at every intersection that is green to 5 MPH and have folks honking all over the place at me?

No. You document the "short" yellow and fight the ticket.

see what state law requires the minimum yellow time for a given speed limit to be.

BTW: given 30MPH and 50 feet, I do not think your reaction time would let you even try to brake before you were already at the intersection. And, at 30MPH, you travel about 44 feet per second, so in 2 seconds you might be almost through the intersection.

So a person approaching any stop light intersection should slow to 5 MPH?

Here are some interesting references for the effect of increasing yellow light time:

http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/timing-myths

I think there are too many motorists slowing for green lights around here now. I'd hate to see what would happen with red light cameras. Fast yellows just make the panic and inappropriate adjustments worse. To avoid messing people up and the obvious negative of revenue as the real reason for red light camera installation, each installation should be accompanied by an increase in the yellow light time. Make it clear that if you just don't try to beat the light you will be OK.

I found the most intersting part of the above information to be the statistics on rate of deacceleration versus stopping. If we can stop in a reasonable manner and avoid going through the red, something like 98% of us do. The others need a ticket. But if you have a short yellow and require a rate of deacceleration that could get you rear ended, you place the driver in a no win situation. That is clearly not right and not consistent with safety.

Jim

@JimD1, I hunted around for a while and could not find a link in the original article (or cross-linked articles) on rate of deacceleration versus stopping. That sounds interesting to me - I try to keep references to such. Would you please provide a link? Thanks

I have seen more and more people doing that. They just do not turn right on red, wait for the green light and go. The cars behind them are not too happy.

That is only 1 tire past the line they are really racking in the money.

"Olson and Rothery reported in 1972 that their research showed that drivers were "virtually" certain to stop if their required deceleration rate was less than 8 feet per second squared and virtually certain to continue if the deceleration rate required was in excess of 12 feet per second squared"
Determining Vehicle Change Intervals - A Proposed Recommended Practice", ITE, 1985

"The average implied deceleration rate of the group with the highest crash rate was slightly over 13 feet per second squared, and the deceleration rate for the group with the lowest crash rate was 8.5 feet per second squared"
"Effect of Clearance Interval Timing on Traffic Flow and Crashes at Signalized Intersections", Zador/ Stein/ Shapiro/ Tarnoff, ITE Journal, November 1985

A real world example that illustrates that motorists do not adjust to the yellow light time and begin violating red lights again can be found in Fairfax County, Virginia. The engineers increased the yellow light time on March 26, 2001 from 4 seconds to 5.5 seconds with a result of a 96 percent decrease in violations. For the full story on this, visit this page.

I don't think the link in the second paragraph survived the cut and paste but this is what I was referring to.

Jim

Here's the link

http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/fairfax

And enhancing safety!

politicians should have a camera on them all the time to see their violate the laws they intend to uphold and support. If they step of line they should pay, but you know they proclaim immunity from prosecution. The average Joe is always...almost always have to prove innocence and pay for politicians to prove they are innocent. We always pay no matter what.

Everybody - while sold as stopping T-bone accidents when one runs straight thru an intersection runnin a redlight and strikes another vehicle, cities quickly learned that this would generate large volumes of revenue. We had Deputies in court trying to show that the vehicle may have looked like it was stopped but when viewing the film in slow motion the tire move an 1/8 of an inch onto the white line - thus the evil criminal driver of the vehicle ran the red light. A study was also done on right turns on red and most intersections had more citations issued on right turn on red then straight thru citations - a very excellent revenue generator.

I have almost been T-boned by redlight runners, one was on a cell-phone and I don't know about the other one. My light was green for at least 3-4 seconds the one time, 10 the other. Not a big fan of red-light running.

That has not been my experience at RLC lights when I wasn't the lead vehicle. I haven't heard any horns honking or seen any one finger salutes. I think a lot of people are like me, intent on denying them their precious revenue.

I don't think anyone likes a true red light runner. A right turn on red, not technically stopping completely, or before the white line, is not the same thing, but it is what brings in big bucks for the red light cameras.

Without the RIC's I have seen people enter the intersection after my light has turned green. This is prevalent at high traffic intersections were you may have to wait three lights to get through the intersection.

It is still dangerous to pedestrians if drivers don't stop prior to the lines or actually stop. I'd say a reduced fine (50% or so) for such violators as they aren't as bad as the ones that blow through the light.

Another reason to stop before the white line, a lot of in ground light changing sensors are before the white line. Stop after the line and the light won't change.
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The sensors for the intersection are in most cases just past the solid white marking. It has always been this way.

Excellent point, that would provide even more incentive to stop prior to the lane. Go past, and you could pay a fine in addition to waiting longer for the light to change.

This is how it is in my area. That's what doesn't make sense. Legally, I'm supposed to stop before any part of my car crosses the white line. If I'm not up far enough, to the point where my wheels are at the white line, I won't get a left green turn arrow, or the light won't change.

Not around here, to trip the light stop before the line. Of course with the new cameras to "monitor" when a car is present the in road sensors are fast becoming a thing of the past.

Another reason for the line (when set back from the intersection)is so trucks and busses can make the turn.

When I read sunsetrunner's comment that the "sensors" were in most cases past the white line, I was confused. Surely the sensors in most cases were not on the intersection side of the white line. My sense was that, in my area of the world, they were either at or behind the white line.

By the way, I am assuming that we are talking about "inductive loops" which are coils of wire in the pavement that form a loop and sense the presence of metal from a vehicle or motorcycle being or passing over the loop.

So I have looked around and found that most of the inductive loops are at or behind the white line. Most of the time there are multiple inductive loops, say three or four in a lane, and every now and then, the front segment of the one closest to the intersection is under the white line.

I did see loops that were half in front of and half behind the white line. So far, I have only observed these in left turn lanes where the white line for the left turn lane(s) was several feet behind the white lines for the normal lane (to give left turners from the perpendicular road more space to make their turns)

It seemed to me that this was a safety feature to be able to recognize the vehicle that gets over the white line but decides not to complete the left turn when the light turns red - thus otherwise being in a no-man's land. In these instances, the inductive loop would recognize what was going on and, hopefully, respond correctly.

The travesty in there is that most of the RLCs only watch the first few seconds after a light change sequence. So the completely oblivious who fly through ten seconds later may likely go un-noticed and un-punished.

Yes, I was referring to the inductive loop(s). In PA they are a single large rectangle, in nearby NJ, they are a series of smaller squares. These loops do not (most of the time) recognize motorcycles, hence the switch to the cameras. Many states, realizing the motorcycle dilemma, have passed laws that allow a motorcycle to "run" a red light (in a turn lane) after at least one full cycle if the light has not given them a green arrow.

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What luck have you had with positioning your bike directly over one of the side lines?

Most of the cameras I have seen specifications for are always active in they are getting live video from their camera(s). The system is armed when the light changes and will record images when triggered by a vehicle passing the trigger point. The camera continues to record each instance until the light changes so where does your information come from?

NYC

PS, someone mentioned the motorcycle dilemma, and the motorcyclists here discovered that the RLCs don't trigger if you ride on the lane markings. YMMV.

The true sources of danger are not always intuitive, nor are they the same wherever you go.

In NYC - the land that invented jaywalking and raised it to an art form and a religion - more pedestrians are killed and injured by motor vehicles making legal turns than by jaywalking and red light running combined.

Of course when I say legal turn I mean that the turn itself was legal, i.e. allowed by traffic control devices. Failure to yield right of way is another matter.

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I actually enjoy driving in NYC, although I haven't been there since New Year's. There are some decent pedestrians, but a lot of bad ones as well. While some wait for the walk signal, many choose to ignore and go when it says don't walk. I've been to many intersections where I have a green turn arrow (don't walk signal for peds) and they continue to walk through. If you were to wait for all of them to jaywalk, you would never be able to make your turn. I can see why motorists (myself included) will continue to force their way through in this situation. If the peds have the legal right to cross, I will wait.

I believe Peds have to yield the right of way as well as motorists (and bicyclists). We would all be better off if people take their turn when it actually is their turn.

Do you know if this applies in PA? I have a motorcycle as well.

A cold day in hell, that what it'll be, when the majority of NYC's pedestrians stay where they belong, when they belong.

And yes, when people discover that there is no immediate legal or financial consequence for ignoring laws, that is precisely what they do. I have tested cops here on several occasions, literally begging for a jaywalking ticket. Except for one occasion where I was given a polite talking-to, my efforts were ignored completely.

The result has been an actual sense of entitlement, with pedestrians cursing out drivers even when the pedestrians are crossing against a red light.

I have upset many peds a week as you have accurately described above Haven't hit one yet....

It would be interesting if someone could come up with a way to ticket "red light walkers" as they cross when it says do not walk.

Where is this 10 feet thing? Can you cite the specific code/law? I have never heard of this.

When I learned to drive nobody really said anything about stop lines. Crosswalks were painted without additional stop lines and the only time you saw a stop line was to allow for turning trucks. Perhaps this is another justification (added to the frailties and dimished senses that come with advancing age) for mandatory periodic driver re-qualification. We have all sorts of lane markings now that did not exist 30-40 years ago.

From where I'm sitting, NYC's RLCs are mostly about revenue generation.

One in the neighborhood is set up only on the downhill side of a major thoroughfare, where traction is miserable from pavement rippling, at an intersection whose light changes several seconds early for no good reason when every other light on the road is sync'd to a particular speed of travel.

Another where two major highways intersect without ramps. The light timing is inexcusably short and traffic backs up for thousands of feet. No wonder business is good there. I know ramps are expensive but what would it cost to set up reasonable light timing.

But in the context of those stop lines, here is a great example of abuse:

http://bytebrothers.net/images/POI-Factory-20120321001.jpg

FYI, the building on the right third of the pic conceals an east/west roadway underneath.

This particular intersection is notorious for nabbing people going north simply putting their front wheel past the stop line. Look at the intersection and tell me why that stop line is so crucial. The crosswalk is 100' away. The nearest path to turning traffic is at least 40' away.

When you ticket people for ridiculous bull it teaches them cynicism rather than good behavior.

Since you're local I'm sure you've heard of Queens Boulevard, a.k.a. the Boulevard of Death. Instead of putting speed patrols near the intersections where everyone dies, they put one near an underpass where traffic will naturally speed up because (a) it is downhill and (b) there are ZERO threats. It's a place where no pedestrians or even bicycles will ever, ever be. How does that benefit anything but the officer's quota, er, I mean performance guidelines.

The inductive loops work with a magnetic field, I put a powerful magnet on the underside of my Road King and if I stop at the intersecting lines of the loop the light will change most of the time.

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There is legislation trying to work it's way through the process to allow it.
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Here's a couple photo's of one of Philly's RLC sensors in the road, clearly before the intersection white line.

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x101/soberbyker/20120321_...

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x101/soberbyker/20120321_...

I think that could happen in my town. The city website states that the camera is triggered anytime a car goes past the line after the light turns red. I suppose you could beat the rap, but you'd have to request a hearing and take the time to present a case.