@krhodes1
It seems to me that one problem is that there is no way to know how long a yellow is going to be – it is wildly inconsistent from area to area.

Well, since everything is computerized these days, and many of these signals aren’t single lamps but circle-shaped boards dotted with hundreds of LEDs, why not configure the yellow light to display numerals that count down to zero.

What THREE conditions must be met for “running a red light” to be a ticketable offence?

Pch101,

Are you suggesting we use science to determine traffic flows? How cutting edge. I bet we could even use the 85th percentile for speed limits…

(mondo sarcasm mode off)

I’m with you, really. We used to. It worked. But didn’t generate the necessary revenue. Back to ‘the children’…

In my area, yellow lights are generally pretty short, so most everyone stops when the light turns yellow. But I have been in places where the light is soo long that if you stopped as soon as it turned yellow, you would probably get rear-ended. I travel all over the country for work and find it quite annoying.

I miss my 87. God that thing was a tank. Was hit no less than 3 times before the transmission decided a warm day in May was as good a time as any to die.

It’s good to have an old truck for that. You should see my buddy in his ‘87 suburban, air horns blaring, charging at people who run the left turn lights. Fortunately, people around here don’t seem to regularly run reds in other situations.

The fact that they feel free to deviate from those standards is the real problem. There should be no surprises here, driving should not be filled with regulatory enigmas that can change arbitrarily without warning. The system should be consistent enough that complying with it is easy for the average driver who wants to obey.

If there is going to be gamesmanship with this, here’s a thought — require that the length of the yellow light, calculated to the 1/10th of a second, be clearly posted at every intersection. Require that the prosecution provide evidence that the length of the light matches the sign that has been posted.

ilove that. don’t wait, just accelerate. they’re the ones going through the red.

When I lived in Baltimore (one of the first places to be notorious for yellow-shortening), yellow meant STOP, period. Everyone stopped, neat and orderly. Every now and then you’d get someone sailing through the light after it turned red, but that was rare.

Now I live in Seattle, which has the longest yellows I’ve ever seen in my life, and it seems everyone just speeds up at the yellow. At most intersections regardless of time of day, I see two to four cars sail through the red, regularly. You sometimes have to wait 3-4 seconds at green before you begin to accelerate (count it out in your head right now, that’s a surprisingly long delay)

I didn’t really notice the contrast until I was back in Maryland over the holidays. I used to think longer yellows were the key… but now I’m not so sure. Maybe just increasing the dead time when all lights are red is the only answer?

What do you mean could? They do fiddle with the yellows in order to maximize revenue.

This is one of the many reasons that folks have issues with them.

Given how many Americans rely on the car industry (through investment holdings and jobs) and how eminently replacable and interchangable politicians are, I know which group I’m more comfortable skewering. And GM isn’t killing anyone.

Not that I’m suggesting letting carmakers off the hook, but like I said, they’re not killing Americans, and both subjects deal directly with cars.

If politicians were telling the truth about all the tax from gas were to pay for the roads, we wouldnt need these devices.

obviously if it is going back into the govt bucket to be spent on whatever it doesn’t make much sense.

I was not surprised with the conclusion about yellow light duration. What do the studies say about normal reaction time? All I ever see is traffic engineers normally use X seconds of yellow light time. What is the proper amount of reaction time?