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That's not really sound logic - if you see a yellow light and there's enough time to safely stop, you should stop. That's an important qualifier. Indeed, that
by kgrin 17y ago
That's not really sound logic - if you see a yellow light and there's enough time to safely stop, you should stop. That's an important qualifier. Indeed, that's why the duration of yellow lights differs based on the expected speed that people will approach them - because it's not, in fact, always safe to stop when you see yellow. (As a thought experiment, ask yourself why we have yellow lights at all, and why they're not instantaneous).
What the city did in this particular case was deliberately shorten the yellow light to a lower time than is actually legal or safe - just to make a few extra bucks.
Now, if your argument was more that "well, the city's wrong, but most of the people who ran the lights are still guilty", then the argument is really similar to the one about the exclusionary rule (evidence in criminal cases can't be used if obtained through an illegal search). Without some way to punish the city, there's no disincentive for them not to keep screwing over people - in this case, in a way that actually increased the accident rate. There's got to be some pain felt for malfeasance, and it sounds like that's exactly what's going on here.
- jws 17y agoCareful there. The article doesn't state that the city shortened the yellow lights. They promised to not use cameras with yellows shorter than 4.4 seconds. They then started moving the cameras around to other intersections. It is possible that these different intersections had light programs with yellows shorter than 4.4 seconds. I also don't see any mention in the article of increased accident rates.
- dmoho 17y agoNot disagreeing with the rest of what you said, but I just wanted to point out that the article does state that the city moved the cameras to intersections with yellows shorter than 4.0 seconds.
- lucumo 17y agoThat's what he said. There's a difference between shortening a time interval of a light with a camera and moving the camera to a light which already has an interval that's too short. Both are wrong and breaking a promise, but the latter can happen by just being dumb, instead of bad intentions.
- apotheon 17y agoI don't think "being dumb" should be rewarded, either -- especially when, if allowed to flourish, such accidental stupidity can lead to willful ignorance and worse.
- murrayh 17y agoIf you brake really hard, you're probably going to decelerate at around 7 m/s2. 25 MPH / 7 m/s2 ~= 1.6 seconds. If you get caught running a redlight, you went through the intersection > 0.5 seconds after the light turned red, which is at least > 4 seconds after the light turned amber. If you can't stop safely in that time, you weren't driving safely, or there were exceptional circumstances (eg. an ambulance, or a tailgating semi-trailer). The video footage of the event will exonerate you in those circumstances. The total number of accidents increase, but the number of severe accidents decrease. I love seeing people running red lights getting flashed. It makes my day.
- apotheon 17y agoIf you brake really hard, you may get rear-ended -- particularly if you're driving a gigantic beast of an SUV and the car behind you is a Geo Metro. I never assume someone's doing something wrong just based on the law; I also check for other factors like who's around them, what those other people are doing, whether the street is wet or oily, et cetera. . . . and whether the speed limit in a particular area is artificially low to increase ticketing revenue.
- bmelton 17y agoIn furtherance of your point, a friend of mine worked for as a civil engineer involved with traffic planning in a medium city. A relevant tidbit (which I only assume to be true as, while it is perfectly logical, is not something I've ever heard taught, so take with salt) is that the solid white lines approaching an intersection are measured, and designed to act as guide markers for yellow lights, at least as originally timed. The way it's supposed to work, is that if you're doing the spped limit and the light turns yellow, you should not stop if you are within the solid white lines, but should stop if you are outside of them. Again, I don't know if this is 100% true, or if it is, whether it applies to all metro areas or just in Memphis, TN.
- splat 17y agoI think thats a good rule of thumb at the very least and it works for me in California.