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I grew up in Australia with red light cameras and super high penalties for running red lights. Seeing drivers run red lights there is quite rare. I didn’t think

by zol 7y ago

I grew up in Australia with red light cameras and super high penalties for running red lights. Seeing drivers run red lights there is quite rare. I didn’t think much of it until I moved to the Bay Area where I seem to see someone run a red, sometimes seconds into it on what seems like a weekly basis. It’s so common that now when I’m at the front of traffic and the light turns green I inch forward and look both ways, something I never used to do. As a cyclist it terrifies me as getting hit by a driver running a red would most likely be fatal. It’s probably an unpopular opinion here in the US but I’d like to see more red light cameras and higher penalties for what is a really dangerous traffic violation that is easily preventable with a change of drivers’ attitudes.

swozey 7y ago
I just moved from a city with a heavy police presence and no red light cameras to one with them placed sporadically throughout the place and almost no police presence (massively understaffed department) and I see far, far more runners in my new city. I see a handful a day. I quit walking to work. I think it's got a lot to do with driving culture/police presence as well. People get surprised when they get red light tickets. Maybe the cameras should look more obvious.
- eigenvector 7y ago
  In Europe, automated traffic enforcement isn't hidden, it's actually clearly announced by signs. It effectively tells the driver: "if you break the law here, you will certainly be caught by a machine and fined". The goal is to get people to follow the law, not to write more tickets.
  - cbluth 7y ago
    In the US, it seems to me that the goal is to fine as many violators as possible, so there is less incentive to warn drivers.
surge 7y ago
Cities used to rig them and the light timing to generate more tickets and actually create more risk of accidents. The running of red lights is a big city thing. It doesn't happen often in most of the US.
- kolinko 7y ago
  Why not have regulations that specify the duration of yellow? In Poland local distrocts use all kinds of stuff to rip off drivers (mostly: low speed limits+radar), but yellow light duration was never an issue.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 7y ago
    They do actually have regulations that specify yellow duration. In fact, one of the most high-profile and borderline satirical red-light camera cases in the USA[1] was one where someone challenged that the yellow light was not lasting the duration set forth by law. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.digitaltrends.com/cars/red-light-camera-math/%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.digitaltrends.com/cars/red-...
jjav 7y ago
I find it interesting that experiences in the same area can be so vastly different. I live in the bay area (Silicon Valley, not San Francisco, maybe that is the difference?), been commuting 60-70 miles a day here for 22 years and I have seen a car run a red light exactly once. I remember the time clearly because it was such an outlier, something that essentially never happens.
washadjeffmad 7y ago
Faith in a non-predatory system is the crux of the issue, not the presence itself of more cameras. For instance, a well designed system only issues a ticket for an improperly crossing plate after an opposing light has turned green, and fines are proportional or variable eg- to a person's wealth or the extent of the violation. Ideally, there would be a manual review request built into the automated process, a limit on the revenues allowed from the cameras, and the source code would be open for scrutiny in court. In the US through the 2000s, companies licensing red light cameras to cities were designing them to issue tickets immediately upon red and sometimes sooner, the process to contest was cumbersome in time and cost and heavily in favor of the cameras, and people in areas that were ticketed most were less likely to be able to afford a lawyer or else not equipped to test and evaluate the cameras in the absence of any oversight. And so the cameras had the opposite effect. It made better sense to speed through yellows than chance getting caught crossing around a red, ensuring that collisions were more destructive and fatal. Others who were afraid of ghost lights would stop at yellows or else slam on brakes coming up to yellows, creating a high risk of rear end collisions. Those effects linger today in many formerly camera'd intersections, and neither is an improvement in safety for pedestrians or cyclists.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  citation?
  - washadjeffmad 7y ago
    To get you started: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14522657/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14522657/ (2003) This is pretty well-studied, so you shouldn't have trouble finding more through your search engine of choice. NCBI is a great place to start.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      But...that citation contradicts the thesis. "overall, injury crashes, including rear-end collisions, were reduced by 25-30% as a result of camera enforcement" Any other citation supporting the post?
xbmcuser 7y ago
In the US traffic laws have become more of a way of earning revenue for local goverments rather than actually for preserving life. So most things are optimised for revenue generation rather than actually stoping law breaking. This has resulted in a large push back from the voters/public against such.

by zol 7y ago

swozey 7y ago

I just moved from a city with a heavy police presence and no red light cameras to one with them placed sporadically throughout the place and almost no police presence (massively understaffed department) and I see far, far more runners in my new city. I see a handful a day. I quit walking to work. I think it's got a lot to do with driving culture/police presence as well. People get surprised when they get red light tickets. Maybe the cameras should look more obvious.

eigenvector 7y ago
In Europe, automated traffic enforcement isn't hidden, it's actually clearly announced by signs. It effectively tells the driver: "if you break the law here, you will certainly be caught by a machine and fined". The goal is to get people to follow the law, not to write more tickets.
- cbluth 7y ago
  In the US, it seems to me that the goal is to fine as many violators as possible, so there is less incentive to warn drivers.

surge 7y ago

Cities used to rig them and the light timing to generate more tickets and actually create more risk of accidents. The running of red lights is a big city thing. It doesn't happen often in most of the US.

kolinko 7y ago
Why not have regulations that specify the duration of yellow? In Poland local distrocts use all kinds of stuff to rip off drivers (mostly: low speed limits+radar), but yellow light duration was never an issue.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 7y ago
  They do actually have regulations that specify yellow duration. In fact, one of the most high-profile and borderline satirical red-light camera cases in the USA[1] was one where someone challenged that the yellow light was not lasting the duration set forth by law. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.digitaltrends.com/cars/red-light-camera-math/%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.digitaltrends.com/cars/red-...

jjav 7y ago

I find it interesting that experiences in the same area can be so vastly different. I live in the bay area (Silicon Valley, not San Francisco, maybe that is the difference?), been commuting 60-70 miles a day here for 22 years and I have seen a car run a red light exactly once. I remember the time clearly because it was such an outlier, something that essentially never happens.

washadjeffmad 7y ago

Faith in a non-predatory system is the crux of the issue, not the presence itself of more cameras. For instance, a well designed system only issues a ticket for an improperly crossing plate after an opposing light has turned green, and fines are proportional or variable eg- to a person's wealth or the extent of the violation. Ideally, there would be a manual review request built into the automated process, a limit on the revenues allowed from the cameras, and the source code would be open for scrutiny in court. In the US through the 2000s, companies licensing red light cameras to cities were designing them to issue tickets immediately upon red and sometimes sooner, the process to contest was cumbersome in time and cost and heavily in favor of the cameras, and people in areas that were ticketed most were less likely to be able to afford a lawyer or else not equipped to test and evaluate the cameras in the absence of any oversight. And so the cameras had the opposite effect. It made better sense to speed through yellows than chance getting caught crossing around a red, ensuring that collisions were more destructive and fatal. Others who were afraid of ghost lights would stop at yellows or else slam on brakes coming up to yellows, creating a high risk of rear end collisions. Those effects linger today in many formerly camera'd intersections, and neither is an improvement in safety for pedestrians or cyclists.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
citation?
- washadjeffmad 7y ago
  To get you started: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14522657/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14522657/ (2003) This is pretty well-studied, so you shouldn't have trouble finding more through your search engine of choice. NCBI is a great place to start.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    But...that citation contradicts the thesis. "overall, injury crashes, including rear-end collisions, were reduced by 25-30% as a result of camera enforcement" Any other citation supporting the post?

xbmcuser 7y ago

In the US traffic laws have become more of a way of earning revenue for local goverments rather than actually for preserving life. So most things are optimised for revenue generation rather than actually stoping law breaking. This has resulted in a large push back from the voters/public against such.