I have been a supporter of cameras at traffic lights to catch people who run red lights. It seemed like an impartial way to catch offenders who indulged in this dangerous practice because the camera did not care about your gender, age, ethnicity, class, type of car, or other factors that might cause a traffic police officer to decide whether to issue a ticket or not. Furthermore, it seems like a waste of time to have police hanging around at intersections doing something that a machine could do better when they could be doing more important things like preventing crime or catching criminals.
But as with many good ideas, financial interests subvert it. Some commenters to my above post pointed out that there were technical problems and, even worse, that by fiddling with the light times, drivers could be entrapped. Some evidence has come to light to support the latter charge. Some municipalities are apparently abusing the system to raise revenue by surreptitiously reducing the length of time that the lights are yellow, resulting in a sharp increase in tickets.
While not new, the profit-driven development continues across the country, with private companies like Redflex Traffic Systems reaping the rewards. In February, the city of Fremont, California, pledged it would refund at least $490,000 in tickets to drivers after it was revealed that for a period of time in 2016, yellow-light times at two key intersections were shorted from 4.7 to 4 seconds, driving an increase in tickets. Each of those intersections was outfitted with red-light cameras run by Redflex Traffic Systems.
According to TheNewspaper.com, the slight variation in yellow light time had a tremendous impact. “Increasing the yellow time by 0.7 seconds in 2015 slashed the number of tickets issued at [the intersection of Mowry Avenue and] Farwell Drive by 77 percent, and shortening it back to 4.0 seconds in February 2016 caused a 445 percent spike in ticketing,” states the publication. “At [the intersection of Mowry Avenue and] Blacow Road, the change to a 4.7 second yellow slashed violations by 68 percent. Shortening it back to 4.0 seconds sent violations skyward by 883 percent. In November 2016, the city decided to switch back to the 4.7 second yellow time for undisclosed reasons.”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago was another one who quietly reduced yellow light times in his city and was forced to reverse himself after an outcry..
What about the benefits in safety due to the cameras?
A 2014 study commissioned by the Chicago Tribune determined that the city’s red lights “fail to deliver the dramatic safety benefits long claimed by City Hall.”
“Emanuel has credited the cameras for a 47 percent reduction in dangerous right-angle, or ‘T-bone,’ crashes,” note reporters David Kidwell and Alex Richards. “But the Tribune study, which accounted for declining accident rates in recent years as well as other confounding factors, found cameras reduced right-angle crashes that caused injuries by just 15 percent. At the same time, the study calculated a corresponding 22 percent increase in rear-end crashes that caused injuries, illustrating a trade-off between the cameras’ costs and benefits.”
But there were some safety benefits and it seems like a shame to abandon those because of some people’s greed. It seems like mandating by law what the yellow light times should be (allowing for some variability due to contingent factors) and making those times public so that anyone could check that cities were not secretly fiddling with it later might preserve the benefits of cameras without tricking motorists.
And all of this is without any consideration of the privacy implications of the government and corporations collecting and retaining detailed info on everyone who passes one of these cameras.
blarg@#1:
And all of this is without any consideration of the privacy implications of the government and corporations collecting and retaining detailed info on everyone who passes one of these cameras.
Are you kidding!? That’s not a bug, that’s a feature!!
(And yes, universally, commercial parking and traffic management businesses share their databases with law enforcement when asked nicely. It’s usually a contingency in their getting the contract. Things like parking management are pure and simple tax-farming, with the profit margin being taken out of the subjects’ pockets)
…America, your obsession with selling off government services continues to amaze me. I had never even considered that red light cameras might be in the hands of a for-profit company. Here in Australia, the manufacturer repairs them when needed, but otherwise has no involvement with them after installation.
Here in SA, yellows last for 4s on a 60km/h or slower road, and 5s on an 80km/h road.
#1
I actually see no need for concern if the government compiles a list of intersections my car has been seen at, being that driving on a road is an activity that takes place wholly in the public realm. The for-profit angle is what bothers me.
“I actually see no need for concern if the government compiles a list of intersections my car has been seen at, being that driving on a road is an activity that takes place wholly in the public realm. The for-profit angle is what bothers me.”
I cannot accept that leaving my house is tacit permission for the government and corporations to track and log my every movement.
The one I know about near me is still unsafe. It’s in a largely dark intersection and it’s a really stupidly bright flash everytime any car gets near it. I am extremely doubtful it has any safety benefits whatsoever and it’s negative safety aspects should be obvious. If I stood there at the intersection with a bright light and flashed it at people as they neared the intersection, I’d be arrested. The city of course can arbitrarily do the same nonsense and claim an opposite effect.
Yes well being in public is actually tacit permission for anyone to track and log your movements. Because you do not have the same presumption to privacy as you do when at home.
Well, I don’t know how these things operate in the US, but here in the UK, traffic light cameras are only triggered by cars that run the red light. They’re not like ANPR or average speed cameras that capture all the traffic that passes.
I know this is almost a month old, but today there was a related story: http://www.seattletimes.com/business/traffic-light-crusader-fined-for-doing-math-without-a-license/