Red-Light Cameras Backed

[5stringJeff]

I'm not sure that this is the best solution to the problem, but red light runners are an increasing problem...

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Red-light cameras backed
State bill would allow systems to catch drivers
By JANE HADLEY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Camano Island Democratic Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen attended a traffic-safety presentation at a national legislative conference last year that included a film of accidents where cars ran a red light and were hit broadside in the intersection.

"Believe me, you would not want to be in one of those accidents," Haugen recently told the Senate Transportation Committee, of which she is chairwoman.

The experience boosted Haugen's interest in legislation to enable local jurisdictions to install automated photo enforcement of red-light violations.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/210503_redlight03.html

 

[no1tovote4]

I'm not sure that this is the best solution to the problem, but red light runners are an increasing problem...

------------------
Red-light cameras backed
State bill would allow systems to catch drivers
By JANE HADLEY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Camano Island Democratic Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen attended a traffic-safety presentation at a national legislative conference last year that included a film of accidents where cars ran a red light and were hit broadside in the intersection.

"Believe me, you would not want to be in one of those accidents," Haugen recently told the Senate Transportation Committee, of which she is chairwoman.

The experience boosted Haugen's interest in legislation to enable local jurisdictions to install automated photo enforcement of red-light violations.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/210503_redlight03.html

You should see this in Colorado. After the light turns red about three to five cars go through the light without fail. You have to wait for them to pass before you can go even though the light has already turned green.

 

[dmp]

seems like this area LOVES throwing money at issues - they are trading VERY TINY/No reductions in accidents, over-all, based on statistics from other cities, for HUGE rises in rear-end collisions...

:-/

 

[Mr. P]

seems like this area LOVES throwing money at issues - they are trading VERY TINY/No reductions in accidents, over-all, based on statistics from other cities, for HUGE rises in rear-end collisions...

:-/

Sounds like following to close or just not paying attention. Either way if I had to be involved in an intersection accident, I'd rather have someone rear end me than T-Bone me.

 

[Annie]

From Chicago, the worst area to drive outside of CA. Right turn on Red should be illegal!

 

[dmp]

So somebody rear-ends your car, and pushes you out into the intersection to be t-boned....sounds like fun


RedLight/Traffic cameras do one thing well - generate revenue.

 

[Mr. P]

So somebody rear-ends your car, and pushes you out into the intersection to be t-boned....sounds like fun


RedLight/Traffic cameras do one thing well - generate revenue.

Sure that can happen..so tell us, how often does it happen now that the cameras are up? Not much is my guess. Redlight Cameras also reduce accidents. BTW we have em here in Atlanta, that may effect your move.

 

[dmp]

Sure that can happen..so tell us, how often does it happen now that the cameras are up? Not much is my guess. Redlight Cameras also reduce accidents. BTW we have em here in Atlanta, that may effect your move.

I argue they do NOT reduce accidents.

From Patrick Bedard - Car and Driver magazine:

When the nation's No. 1 cheerleader for red-light cameras admits there might be one teensy-weensy downside to the program, you just know it's going to be a lulu so large it couldn't be crammed under the carpet without making a bulge the size of a circus tent.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) recently enthused over traffic-tickets-by-mail schemes for an entire issue of its Status Report. On red-light cameras, however, it did allow that "most studies also reported increases in rear-end crashes."
It went on to say, "This isn't surprising. The more people stop on red, the more rear-end collisions there will be."

Duh!
Not to worry, however, because "photo enforcement leads to significant overall reductions in crashes," assures Susan Ferguson, the institute's senior vice-president for research.

Well, that depends on who's telling the story. The institute itself did two studies, both in Oxnard, California, the most recent one published in 2001. Other studies have been done, but the IIHS roundly pooh-poohs them. Why? Because they don't follow a curious methodology the IIHS invented especially for Oxnard.
IIHS insists that all red-light-camera studies must account for "regression to the mean" and for "spillover effects."

Regression to the mean is a fact of life; in any one year, there could be an extraordinarily large number of crashes at a particular intersection, but over several years the count will revert back to average (mean).
Funny that IIHS insists regression be accounted for in studies at stoplights when it never considers the same factor in its studies of speed limits.

Spillover effect is IIHS's trick for giving the cameras credit for reducing fatalities even where they aren't. It assumes that red-light cameras at a few intersections will cause drivers to stop promptly all over town, or all over the county, or maybe all over the state, so improvements outside the cameras' ZIP Codes are credited to them nonetheless. As statistical acrobatics go, this one is breathtaking.
But you ain't seen nothin' yet. The obvious way to gauge the payoff of red-light cameras is to compare intersections with cameras to those without, then zoom in on crashes actually caused by drivers running red lights. Instead, IIHS considered all crashes at all 125 signalized intersections in Oxnard and concluded that injury crashes dropped by 29 percent due to the cameras, even though they were installed at only 11 intersections.

Spillover effect, don't you know.
Skeptics will notice that crashes went down rather randomly all over town, and some ordinary intersections outperformed those with the gotcha equipment. The cameras look remarkably ineffectual until, just in time, spillover effect arrives to snatch victory from the jaws of ho-hum.

Skeptics will also notice that these IIHS studies, which pretend to be about red-light running, never bother to isolate those crashes specifically caused by running red lights. Why? It says, "The crash data did not contain sufficient detail to identify crashes that were specifically red-light-running events."
This is believable only to those who've never heard of police reports. Oxnard, like most California jurisdictions, reports crashes according to the California Highway Patrol protocol, which includes a "primary collision factor," i.e., the cause of the crash. Those reports are collected into a CHP database (SWITRS). Running red lights falls under the category of "stop signals and signs." According to Steve Kohler of the CHP, it includes stop signals and stop signs. Nothing else.

Since all signalized intersections in Oxnard are, by definition, controlled by signals and not stop signs, red-light running should be neatly isolated as a "primary collision factor." When IIHS finds numbers that support the story it wants to tell, it jumps on them like a trampoline. When it hides from numbers as it did in this case, you can bet they go the wrong way.

IIHS has refused to release the study's raw data so that others may verify its conclusions, but Jim Kadison, a disarmingly sincere member of the National Motorists Association, went directly to SWITRS for crash data on the nine signalized Oxnard intersections used in the first IIHS study. He smelled something funny in IIHS's breakdown of crashes; just nine percent were rear-enders. Across the nation, it's about 40 percent, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Looking at the data, Kadison could reduce rear-enders down to a single-digit share only by narrowing the definition of intersection to "between crosswalks." Narrowing that way chops off the entire approach to the intersection, exactly where rear impacts happen. It looks like IIHS purposely designed its study to avoid seeing rear-enders.
Sure enough, when he opened the "intersection" to include crosswalks and 100 feet each side of them, rear crashes rose to a more normal share. Over this enlarged zone, rear-end crashes increased by 33 after red-light cameras were installed. At the same time, side impacts dropped 25 percent. Kadison concludes that the cameras merely trade one type of crash for another.

IIHS's claim of safety from cameras is flatly contradicted by a number of cities that have tried them. "At some intersections [with cameras] we saw no change at all, and at several intersections we actually saw an increase in traffic accidents," admitted San Diego police chief David Bejarano on ABC News's Nightline.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, station WBTV had this to say, "Three years, 125,000 tickets, and $6 million in fines later, the number of accidents at intersections in Charlotte has gone down less than one percent. And the number of rear-end accidents, which are much more common, has gone up 15 percent."

In Greensboro, the News & Record reports, "There has not been a drop in the number of accidents caused by red-light violations citywide since the first cameras were installed in February 2001. There were 95 such accidents in Greensboro in 2001, the same number as in 2000. And at the 18 intersections with cameras, the number of wrecks caused by red-light running has doubled."
The granddaddy of all studies, covering a 10-year period, was done for the Australian Road Research Board in 1995 (cameras went up in Melbourne in 1984). Photo enforcement "did not provide any reduction in accidents, rather there has been increases in rear end and [cross-street] accidents," wrote author David Andreassen in the page-one summary.

Red-light cameras turn out to be a very expensive way to crank up rear-end crashes. Motorists in Washington, D.C., alone pay a half-million dollars a month in fines. That's not enough, IIHS says. It wants points on driving records, too.

 

[CivilLiberty]

I'm not sure that this is the best solution to the problem, but red light runners are an increasing problem...

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Red-light cameras backed
State bill would allow systems to catch drivers

We've had these for years now in California, at the busiest intersections, and it's virtually eliminated idiots pulling into the intersection when the other side is full, and causing grid lock., and we also don't see morons running the light at these intersections.

One of the early concerns was people speeding to avoid getting the ticket, and the solution was to extend the length of the yellow light, which now gives more warning time. Anyone getting a ticket now is egregiously violating the red light law, which in California states that you cannot ENTER the intersection after the light turns red.


My attitude here is different than continuously running video camera. In the case of the red light cameras, it is not continuous surveillance, but a still image taken only after sensors detect a violation.

A separate issue that I find troublesome is that here in LA, the systems are run by Lockheed Martin under contract, and not by the city itself. (this is also true of LA parking enforcement). For reasons that should be self evident, having profit participation by corporations in matter of law enforcement is not a good idea.


Regards

Andy

 

[dmp]

Yeah, I don't think much will in todays society but the thought of being mailed a ticket for blowing a red light may help a bit.

The way some of y'all talk, it's as if somebody running a red light - or being caught in a red light causes 20 wrecks a day.

Honestly, Red-light 'running' is NOT such a concern; at least in this area. It may happen a lot, but the consequences seem limited to simply having people pissed off, at most.

 

[musicman]

Here's a problem: In the absence of a left-turn arrow, the absolutely necessary gambit of "declaring one's intersection" often results in - technically - running a red light. If people are afraid to do that, it's going to get pretty badly bottled up out there.

 

[dmp]

Well I have lived the exception to the rule then, perhaps I am slightly biased for that but it's something that needs to be curbed even if 1 in a 100 runners cause a accident it's usually a bad one!

I'm not suggesting we allow for running red lights - I'm saying Photo-Enforcement is NOT a good way to do it.

 

[Mr. P]

I'm not suggesting we allow for running red lights - I'm saying Photo-Enforcement is NOT a good way to do it.

Why not? I see it as the best way to do it.
What would you suggest instead?

 

[CivilLiberty]

The way some of y'all talk, it's as if somebody running a red light - or being caught in a red light causes 20 wrecks a day.

Honestly, Red-light 'running' is NOT such a concern; at least in this area. It may happen a lot, but the consequences seem limited to simply having people pissed off, at most.

Where do you live?? Utah? North Dakota? You have what, 2 or 3 stop lights in your town?

Here in downtown Hollywood, an area of Los Angeles, we have intersections with 3 lanes of traffic in every direction plus 2 center turn lanes and/or dedicated right turn lanes. (7 to 10 lanes total), not to mention the 5 and 6 way star intersections where former city boundaries collide.

It IS a big issue here. Hollywood actually has about the highest insurance rates in the nation (I'm over 40 with a good driver discount, and the lowest cost insurance company in Ca., and I'm paying over $1200 a year for semi full coverage with a very high deductible). Accidents here are so frequent, I've actually seen at least 6 happen right in front of my face (that I was not involved in) and I have been hit by morons at least 4 times.

We have the cameras in just a few of the worst intersections, but the lack of jackasses jumping the gun and causing grid lock, (not to mention the lower gridlock from accidents) has made an improvement in the quality of life/driving in this very congested area.



Andy

 

[fuzzykitten99]

I process titles and such for progressive. I am responsible for making sure the crashed vehicles are transferred to the salvage yard and the titlework is complete, etc. Each car, I have to look at photos to determine if it is worth auctioning at the yard. Sometimes I come across some pretty grisly ones-including blood-covered seats, dashes, etc. The heading on all our claims says a quick quip about how the accident happened, where, and if immediately apparent, who was at fault.

You would not believe the number of red light and stop sign runner crashes I process. They make up about 75% of my work. Many actually end up as fatalities. One that I will never forget is one that an infant was killed-some guy in a toyota 4-runner thought he would run the light because he wanted to get to the liquor store before they closed. he wasn't drunk, but he hit the other car so hard on the rear passenger side, it caved in so far that it crushed the infant. I started crying after i read what happened.

I know that red light cameras would help reduce running lights because there would be consequences, without cops at every intersection. It would take people a while to change their habits, but I am sure a few tickets would make that happen faster.

 

[dmp]

Why not?

Because they are ineffective at ANYTHING but generating revenue. They simply don't work towards increasing safety.

I see it as the best way to do it.
What would you suggest instead?

What other methods have you looked at?

 

[acludem]

My problem with these cameras is that they don't just pan cars going through lights. They film and record what business people go to, where they drive to, etc. It is scary what one could use these cameras for. Big Brother is definitely watching.

acludem

 

[5stringJeff]

What other methods have you looked at?

If you are questioning the use of cameras to address the problem, I think it's incumbent upon you to suggest an alternate solution.

 

[Merlin1047]

I'm not suggesting we allow for running red lights - I'm saying Photo-Enforcement is NOT a good way to do it.

D - I believe you're off on this one. Matter of fact, you have me a bit suspicious of your own red-light tendencies. heh heh

Europe has had these gadgets in use for decades. They work. I suggest that the increase in rear end collisions cited by the study you provided is a temporary phenomena. Right now, the common reaction to a yellow light is to nail the accelerator and run the light if it cycles to red before you get to the intersection. People need to have time to adjust their thinking back to the original intent of a yellow light - and that was to SLOW DOWN and stop. I think that the knowledge that you will absolutely get to cough up a hefty fine for running a red will eventually tame even the most rebellious drivers.

 

[dmp]

D - I believe you're off on this one. Matter of fact, you have me a bit suspicious of your own red-light tendencies. heh heh

Europe has had these gadgets in use for decades. They work. I suggest that the increase in rear end collisions cited by the study you provided is a temporary phenomena. Right now, the common reaction to a yellow light is to nail the accelerator and run the light if it cycles to red before you get to the intersection. People need to have time to adjust their thinking back to the original intent of a yellow light - and that was to SLOW DOWN and stop. I think that the knowledge that you will absolutely get to cough up a hefty fine for running a red will eventually tame even the most rebellious drivers.

I 'never' knowingly run red lights - I simply HATE when government tries to disguise a blatant attempt to 'tax' it's citizens under the false claim of 'improved safety'.

Independent studies, as listed above, show the devices do nothing but generate revenue.