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Some states are “owner responsibility” states which means it doesn’t matter who is driving. And going through red lights is dangerous. Wouldn’t it be better t

• cronix 8y ago
  Sure, one should never intentionally run a red light, and I wasn't suggesting that they do. The article specifically talks about them shortening the duration of a yellow light from 5 seconds to 3 in order to increase revenue by catching more people running the (shorter) light. They purposefully are creating a situation where people feel the need to speed up to make it through the shorter duration light and more people are getting killed because of it. I don't know about where you live, but in a lot of places if you cross the crosswalk and are now in the intersection and the light just changes from green to yellow, 3 seconds isn't enough to clear the intersection before it turns red unless you were already traveling the speed limit and the lane is clear ahead of you. Imagine yourself in rush hour traffic and you're the first car stopped at a green light because you can't safely clear the intersection. The car ahead moves and you start to enter the intersection because there is now space to clear the intersection without having to stop in it. Just as you start to accelerate it turns yellow, and then red 3 seconds later before you clear it because they shortened the time. If the light stayed at a 5 second yellow light, you would have made it through. Is that genuinely your fault if you did everything according to the book but only got caught because they artificially lowered the yellow light time?
  • 300bps 8y ago
    Shortening light cycle times to increase revenue is evil. But one thing that is not widely known is that it is illegal to enter an intersection while the light is yellow. The only time it is legal to enter an intersection is while the light is green. So if the light turns yellow, you enter the intersection and leave it while the light is still yellow... that is just as illegal as if you entered the intersection when the light was red.
    • irlib 8y ago
      You must be living in a perfect world where people finally won laws of physics. In my world, if you driving at speed limit near intersection you have zero chance to stop before the line. And even if you managed so, there is a very good chance that a driver behind will not have so good brakes and reflexes.
    • hexane360 8y ago
      Not true in the first few states I checked. The closest is Wisconsin, where the motorist "must stop at a yellow light except when the motorist is so close to the intersection when the light turns yellow that it’s unsafe to do so" [1]. In other words, you're wrong. Also, there are multiple degrees of illegal, and I'm certain the punishment for running a yellow light isn't of the same magnitude as the punishment for running a red light. It seems that you like correcting people enough that you're biased towards believing in unintuitive things. 1: https://www.drivinglaws.org/resources/wisconsin-red-light-stop-sign-tickets.html https://www.drivinglaws.org/resources/wisconsin-red-light-st...
• 0xfeba 8y ago
  Running a red light, say, 0-2s after it's just turned red is much, much, much safer than one that's been red for minutes already. But these laws don't prevent the latter, since those are usually oblivious or impaired drivers. They just find a way to monetize the former. Which isn't in itself wrong -- it just sets up these perverse incentives that history has shown various jurisdictions cannot handle without transparency.