fake red light & speed cameras

Well, it seems to me that "everyone" states that they use Redlight and Speed Camera POI files not because they may go through a red or travel a little too fast, but because they worry that the motorists ahead of or behind them will react to the camera and as a result, crash into your vehicle or cause you to crash into theirs.

If "everyone" with camera alerts makes the same claim, then it shouldn't matter if the cameras are functioning or decoys as the danger from motorists ahead and behind them will continue

Astute observation. Everyone knows the we only use the red light camera alerts to enhance our awareness of those other drivers! Every member of the Factory is a prudent driver who would normally not have to worry about tickets issued by red light or speed cameras.

Many cities have few number of cams but have numerous sites. What they do is rotate cams according to season, events and traffic management. That was what I understand.

I remember when they started the red light cameras, I've got the tickets to prove it . First I tried spray on the license plates. Then the DOT threatened that if they caught you using the spray they'd really stick it to you. And after getting a ticket with the spray, obviously it didn't really work to well. But back then there were only 50 cameras in the Metro NY area.
The truth is if you really want to turn the entire country into a absolutely traffic controlled state (ie: police state) you could put a red light camera on every intersection in the country. Then everyone would feel SAFE. I don't want to live that way.
I'm from the era of the first Cannonball Run in the 60's.
I feel sorry for anyone who still smokes cigarettes.
But I don't want to arrest them, and we're heading that way

I don't think they would leave non revenue producing cams out there!

But there's no real cost for a fake camera. Unless it's a real camera that just isn't turned on it could be nothing more than a hollow box on a pole. It would work, because who's going to take a chance and run through it on red?

I received a email claiming it was a hidden camera. These cameras are in both England and Australia and maybe other countries. interesting. I think they could soon will be a hidden camera

http://www.thatsnonsense.com/view.php?id=1634

If the majority of people would stop running red lights there would be no incentive for vendors to "cut deals" with cities and the profit sharing that goes with it.

You don't seem like you have been paying attention. Otherwise you would know about changes to red light timings that are regularly done to help improve revenue by catching people who were given no time to stop safely before going through a red light. Or, as was the case in my area, red light camera photos that clearly showed that no violation had occurred, but were used to issue tickets anyway, knowing that it was too expensive and inconvenient for the typical motorist to fight them.

When was this?

Was it discussed on this site?

Wonder if they feel the need to use a short yellow interval on fake RLCs too!
Mark

It has at least been mentioned in some related threads here. If you want a link to some of the details:

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/19/17010355-...

I should add that the red light cameras in this town are now gone. There was a class action suit filed, but a judge decided that the people who paid could not get their money back. Also of interest is that the red light company got a reported $45 out of $50 for a paid ticket, in direct conflict with state law that requires it to go to the school district (a law put in place long ago to discourage small towns that set up speed trap zones as a revenue source). Actually, when the cameras were shut down it was pointed out that the town actually lost money on them (although it was never openly discussed how much the politicians who originally approved them pocketed personally).

Thanks for the link.

I did not know which town you might have been talking about. There was a discussion of Cary NC in the thread
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/38920
but that thread made no mention of the "false positives".

For info sake of those who do not follow links, the issue was that Cary NC instituted flashing yellow lights and did not inform the vendor, Redflex.

the link above says, in part

While some try to say that the problem was that the red light racketeer wasn't notified of the town's change, that is somewhat bogus. Yes, the yellow left turn arrows were (and still are) extremely confusing. And, if you think about it you'll realize that if you have a yellow arrow meaning turn left, but with caution, rather than warning you that the left turn is ending, then you don't have any warning when it actually ends (there is no orange light between yellow and red). But the tickets in question were issued when the light was clearly yellow (and drivers were expected to drive through the intersection). The photo shows the driver legally going through a yellow light, but the ticket was issued. This happened over and over again. I never heard any explanation of how any failure to notify the racketeer explains why they would be issuing tickets for cars going through a yellow arrow.

We have one stretch of highway where flashing yellows for left turns are implemented. Since I have never made a left turn at one of these intersections, I have not hoisted it in yet, but I thought that while it was flashing yellow, it was the same as a left turn under caution while the light was green - and that when the left turn flashing light turned to steady yellow, then one would have the normal three seconds (or whatever) to make it through.

I've only been through that stretch a couple of time so what I need to do is go park in a parking lot near one and see what happens.

Anyone else have any of these flashing yellow left turns? If so, what is your observations.

I've visited some places that had flashing green lights. The first time I saw it, I didn't know what it meant, so I just treated it like a regular green light. At the first opportunity, I asked some of the locals about it and found out it was the same as a green left-hand turn arrow. At least with that, you still had the yellow light to warn you the light would turn red. Not sure what they are thinking if they are just using a yellow flashing light. Sounds dangerous to me.

Even if that happened (and I don't believe it is happening at all locations for the town being discussed), look at that 3 seconds of non-blinking warning. How much warning is that really? For the purpose of discussion let us assume that, when flashing, the yellow arrow is 1 second on and a half second off (I have not measured this). So when the light "changes" to steady yellow arrow from flashing yellow arrow, when should the drivers be able to realize this? Certainly not in the first second, since that looks exactly like it does during the flashing cycle. I'll suggest that the typical drives wouldn't be aware that the light was now on in solid yellow mode at 1.1 seconds either. It is more likely, that after the yellow flashing arrow changes to a solid non-flashing arrow that the drivers could not know that the transition had occurred until the light was solid for about 2 seconds. (And even then the change from flashing yellow to solid yellow is much harder to detect and consciously register than the change from green to yellow). That would effectively take that 3 second warning window down to a mere 1 second after the driver can be expected to know that the change has already started to when the light turns red. Not enough time to safely stop or make it through the intersection, at least not when most states require that the driver be completely through the intersection before the change to red.

Maybe you know of some states that are different, but all those I have researched give tickets only when the vehicle has entered the intersection after the light has turned red.

For example, in my city at intersections with red light cameras, the traffic engineer says: