You have now learned that people in your area will stop suddenly as soon as they see the yellow. All good! You back off a bit, pay more attention to trailing distance, put your foot on the brake as you approach the intersection. Man, this is great, so far.

With all this benefit, you just got about half the cars through the intersection than the existing plans and studies say should be making it. Also, old TINSTAAFL raises it’s head with physics. The sudden stopping at the light is going to degrade the street to the point that it will give out right there, about 20% faster (my guesstimate), if not more.

On top of this, we know from history as reported by TTAC, that the result will almost assuredly be a shortened yellow to increase revenue from fines. This brilliant move will increase accidents for sure.

Did it profit the community? Maybe, but likely not. Not everyone is going to know where the cameras are (visitors at least). You now have an inconsistent mix of this behavior all over town.

All I know is it’s a good time to be in the bumper business.

I think the cameras will eventually lower the rate of accidents. The dangerous drivers will have a learning process, which takes time.

If we really cared about safety, it would be twice as hard to get a license. If getting a Class D was more akin to the effort it takes to get a basic pilot’s license with no instrument rating, all problems related to cars would improve dramatically.

Congestion would be curtailed, oil consumption would go down, carbon footprint of the jurisdiction doing this would improve considerably. Accidents would be dramatically reduced with the removal of incompetent or skill-deficient drivers from the streets.

It will never happen though. Less cars sold means pain for everyone in that industry. Bureaucracies would take a financial bath on ticket revenue. A whole cottage industry of shrinks and do-gooders exists now to recycle DUI drivers back onto the roads for strikes two and three, after even more revenue extraction from said DUI drivers. With tougher licensing, the reason for their financial existence would dry up and blow away.

Insurance companies would lament the reduction of a mandated business for them. The motor-home industry would collapse with the probable elimination of the licensed geriatric demographic they depend on. Instituting and enforcing such a move would be political suicide for any huckster who actually did such a thing.

That’s why harder licensing requirements won’t happen, but it also demonstrates that we as a society do not take safety “first” by choice. Politicians should be reminded of that reality every time they roll out the Safety Float to justify their machinations.

And Mehta, I have to disagree…as a daily commuter, Safe-Clear has improved highway life in Houston.

I didn’t understand that some of these systems log you if you enter the intersection on the red (seems reasonable to me) and others log you if you are still in the intersection when the light turns red (seems dangerous to me).

New Orleans has one camera intersection on outer Canal (which the CC claims is the broadest street in the world) where the equipment is set up both to tag you if you are in the intersection when it turns red and includes a speed recording device so if you speed up to get through the intersection you will get a speeding ticket in the mail.

(or at least it’ll make you all feel better)

Find out the license plate number of the Mayor and each of the City Council twerps who voted for this cash grab. Use a laser printer to print some paper license plates with their numbers on them, then tape them over your own license plate.

Finally, blast thru these intersections to your hearts content (just make sure you don’t get caught by the pigs while you’re doing it).
Let the City assholes go to the trouble of explaining it’s not their cars a few dozen times each.

Very true. The same logical process is what slows traffic when driving during inclement weather. It is only logical that when drivers figure out where the cameras are, they will jump on the brakes to avoid the ticket. Those not in the know will not be prepared for the driver to stop, after all, the yellow was probably shortened a bit to up the revenue stream. So, rear enders are bound to go up.

I was bagged by one of these Orwellian devices while driving a company vehicle. Management does not take kindly to employees driving in an “unsafe” manner. So now, I jam on the brakes if the camera-light changes. No rear enders yet, but plenty on near misses, and a few have swerved around me and blown through the now red light. I guess they are in for a surprise in a week. Such selfish behavior is not natural to me, but slowly I am being programmed to not give a shit. Pretty sad but the rear ender won’t be charged to me, but camera tickets will result in forfeiture of the company car…

On of the leading causes of accidents ANYWHERE is having fellow drivers perform erratic or completely unexpected maneuvers.

We all know in our “gut” the go no-go “point of no return” when you expect the car in front of you to proceed through the coming intersection.

Red light camera systems DRAMATICALLY increase the likelihood that someone will slam on the binders at exactly the time that you expect they “run the light”

This causes the dreaded fender accordion syndrome.

Letting machines without any form of common sense enforce traffic laws does not work… never has, never will.

They should have run a “Multiple Time Series” using other intersections (without cameras) as a control during the same time period of ‘treatment’ of the other intersections. Of course that requires more people and more money.

The pre/post test single time series they used doesn’t control very well for threats to external validity.

Forget about the red light cameras, the Safe Clear program drives me nuts.

Wow. Whodathunk?

Is there really anyone left out there who is that Leave It To Beaver naive? Really?