Red light cameras and trucking

You call them 'red light' cameras. They are 'intersection cameras'. Intersection accidents are the most common. They document intersection accidents, making accident investigations much easier, clear, decisive and cost-effective.

From what I was taught in Drivers Ed back in 1986, YELLOW = Stop IF you can do so safely. IF stopping means that you will be beyond the painted stop line when you stop, then proceed through the intersection with the brake pedal covered. In truck driving school, they taught that if you can see the light turn red, then you should have stopped. BUT, some lights, the time the YELLOW light is displayed is a very short.

Everyone is a case by case basis for me. How fast am I going and how heavy I am and how fast the light is are big factors if i stop or not. Some lights have 25 mph limits, those are easy to stop for. Some have 45 mph limits, they are harder to stop for.

 

That's nonsensical. If that's human nature then human nature renders motorists incompetent. Everyone knows a yellow signal means stop for the red light that is about to appear.

There's your problem, the speed limit throughout the city of Chicago is 25 mph. 35 mph is 40% above 25 mph.

Irrelevant, of the completely variety, stopping is the law. It matters not if it's 2 am and there isn't another vehicle or pedestrian within a mile, "stop" still means "stop".

The National Motorists Association is a k00k organization, better than perfectly ignorant because everything they think they know is wrong, and not a credible source of anything but pure BS intended to salve the bruised egos of incompetent motorists who see themselves as victims of traffic code, as depicted in your video.

They purport ""Federal regulations require 3 to 6 seconds of yellow "signal time"" when there is no such regulation, it's a "recommendation". States are free to time their signals however they please, same as they can post any speed limit they please.

Traffic is regulated by the states, and few things could be more obvious. Feds only touch traffic regulations via STAA and the like.

I once estimated I have ~6000 hours of "professional" video editing experience, I can "feel" time in seconds more accurately than anyone without such experience can imagine... and to my own amazement.

They purport their video displays a time code frame count when it does not. See: 2:30. Their time code counts 30 frames (1 second [29.97 frames, technically]) and converts them to seconds, then counts another 30 frames. When the yellow interval ends it has counted more than 4 seconds, which they purport is 2.5 seconds. It competes for the purest BS to be found in this solar system.

But they know victims aren't going to question it, they will clutch at ANYTHING to convince themselves they are not incompetent and their tickets are the fault of someone else. Nothing new about that crap.

That's not how any RLC works. The speed of the vehicle is recorded during the infraction. A motorist doesn't even have to fully stop before a RTOR, if their speed crossing the stop bar is slow enough, <~3 mph, the camera isn't activated.

Lemme tell ya, I've heard it ALL, including that cameras are malfunctioning when they discharge a flash when all traffic is dead-stopped. It's all nothing but lame excuses, obviously, because the vast majority of motorists exhibit NO difficulty stopping for red lights... and they don't get RLC tickets.

 

I'm pretty sure what you read was that 1 (ONE) study (in TX, IIRC) found that adding 1 second to yellow intervals drastically reduced red light violations.

Seems plausible, same as those motorists now escaping a violation were those speeding excessively. Ain't gonna happen, motorists are going to have to motor better than the typical great-grandmother.

 

It has been proven in several states that this is what has been done. One of the first municipalities in Colorado to install these cameras, nearly 15 yrs ago, was Northglenn. It was installed at two intersections, 104th and Huron and 104th and Melody. In the first 5 yrs after being installed, rear end collisions at 104th and Melody tripled. A local tv station did a report on it, they timed the light sequence at every intersection in that City and found those two intersections were as much as 3 seconds faster light cycles.

Also, there is a 6 way intersection in Commerce City, Colo., it has these cameras setup at all points, they generally do not mail out the citations for commercial vehicle violations, lord knows I've seen the flashes when I've gone through it in the middle of the night. They also don't seem to work on motorcycles. That said, I know one of the traffic cops for Commerce City, he said they are aware of the short cycle in the light, that it is inherent with the use of traffic camera, and that unless the state bans them, they have no plans to change or remove the light. That said, these systems generally need 3x the maintenance of a non-camera intersection. The company that installed the cameras is out there at least once a week working on it, the funniest part, it's supposed to reset itself around 2 am, but in the middle of the night, they will just flash for no apparent reason, from what he told me, they have some lovely pictures of birds flying around the intersection.

Now, one thing we have found, is that Denver uses photo radar vans, they get a lovely full on shot of the front and rear of the vehicle. They will send them out on commercial vehicles, as we've had a couple of them, my boss always returns them marked "our truck, unknown driver, 13 trucks, 20 drivers, pic. too blurry to determine, drivers are not assigned tractors". Ticket just goes away.

 

The Feds recommend all speed limits also be set based on the 85th percentile, which as a general rule does not happen, if it did there would no longer be split speed limits, and Ca. would be 10 mph faster.

 

That's just a description how crashes occur, not how RLCs "cause" them.

The identical circumstances occur at non-RLC intersections. To what exterior cause would you attribute those...?

RLC victims are fond of citing increased percentages of rear-end crashes at RLC intersections: "They went up 20% the first year!"

What they don't say is that increase was from 8 to 10, well within the normal range of the normal variance of the normal numbers of rear-end crashes at signalized intersections every year.

It's all just BS.

 

Ya but that happens with or without cameras.I think more ppl then not don't even pay attention to the cameras or aren't aware they're even installed until they're stopped and waiting for the lite to change..I don't,I just know when to stop and not barreling up or thru a lite.

 

Well, here's my thought, since your the expert, or pretend to be. Next year, the Colorado State Legislature will once again take up the measure to have these outlawed. I'll make certain to email you, and be awaiting your response that you will be there to testify how these are the safest things since the bicycle helmets. Oh, btw, during testimony this year, two different Police Chiefs admitted that at some intersections they have seen rearend collisions increase following the installation of the cameras. In fact, in the post 2 above this, I mentioned the City of Northglenn, which had three fatal rearend collisions involving senior citizen drivers who were rearended.

In Denver, which has the cameras at about a dozen intersections, they have only noticed a reduction at 1 of the intersections, while all others have had zero impact. Even the Denver City auditor, while remaining neutral on the issue, said his office found no tangible evidence to support the cameras improving safety. Only a comment from a biased source, Denver Police, supports their use, and they only reference one intersection.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_25655268/colorado-lawmakers-gut-bill-that-would-have-banned

 

Source, please?

It is a common misperception that "85th percentile speed" means "85th percentile during the periods when traffic is moving fastest". It does not.

It means "85th percentile of free-flowing traffic" which is defined specifically by space between vehicles.

It is also a common misperception that the 85th percentile speed is the sole criterion of the 85th percentile method of setting speed limits. It is not.

But I still have to agree the vast majority of speed limits are set "legislatively" according to road class; 25 mph in residential areas and surface streets within city limits, 55 on interstates within urban areas, etc. That's not unreasonable to those who are not speed-obsessed.

There is no shortage of residential areas where the SL could be set according to the 85th percentile method at 35-40 mph, but the proliferate driveways and pedestrian traffic... AKA those pesky additional criteria of the 85th method, would make that pretty silly.

Granted. Too bad. But, CHP is very tolerant of trucks doing 65 on CA's wide open rural interstates as long as they are not doing 65 stupidly, as is so common, with too little following distance for a 4-wheeler, behind a 4-wheeler.

In town or coming off grades into town and you risk being hammered. Down the grade into Baker, no problem. Down the Grapevine or approaching Primm or through the Siskiyous you risk being hammered. It's not that hard to figure out.