Red Light Camera

Agreed. A camera would not have prevented any of these accidents.

EXCEPT...

Maybe if cameras had been installed, and traffic laws enforced, some of these drivers would have lost their licenses due to reckless driving before they finally had a serious crash. After all, the point of traffic enforcement is to get people to change their driving habits, or else get them off the road if they won't.

A few of the people in the video made it through without causing an accident. Now, take the video, use it to find that person and take away their license, and now you've gotten one homicidal driver off the road BEFORE he kills someone.

The camera does not prevent the incident documented; but used properly it can prevent the NEXT incident by getting lunatic drivers off the road.

And in my view, that's both the point and the justification for these cameras.

Some people think that yellow means "speed up so you get through before it goes red." In fact, yellow means "STOP NOW IF SAFE TO DO SO! Proceed through ONLY if it is not safe to stop." So they SHOULD be ticketing people for going through the yellow if it is clear that they could have stopped safely.

Here's an idea:

Insurance companies raise your rates if you have an accident. How about a 10% surcharge on your income tax when you have a moving violation! The surcharge would expire after 5 years without a violation, or one year after you voluntarily turn in your license. An additional 10% surcharge would be applied for each violation, and after 3 violations, you'd lose your license permanently and pay the surcharge for 5 years. Add to that mandatory jail time for reckless behavior or causing a crash. If driving one mph over the limit resulted in a 10% surcharge on your income taxes, people would start driving under the limit. Right now, in places where the cops give a 5 mph grace, everyone drives 5 mph over the limit. But there's an Indian reservation in New Mexico (a friend drove me around NM to see some sights) where the reservation cops ticket at one mph over the limit, and on that stretch of highway, people drive at the speed limit. You can complain that they're "just raising revenue," but they're making the highway safer at the same time! If it's too stressful for you to drive at exactly the limit, to avoid that ticket for one mph over, you can drive 4 mph below the limit, to give yourself the 5 mph buffer.

 

I tend to agree on the price tag on the tickets here. While I haven't gotten one, I have heard they are quite high and you have basically no chance of winning it if you fight it. However, at what price point do people stop thinking about the cost of the ticket and just run the light? More of thinking aloud on that.

What gets me, are that most of the intersections, they shorted the yellow light time down about 20-50%. This to me is unacceptable. Sometimes that extra 2 seconds is the difference between stopping before the intersection and stopping dead center on it. I understand that there has to be a certain time for the lights, but shortening them to 1.5 seconds is absurd.

Be careful next time you're in the first mistake of Delaware. We will be up to like 57 red light cameras soon.

 

Do you really have some lights of just 1.5 seconds? In most places, that is simply illegal. Even if legal in any specific location, it is a gross violation of federal traffic standards, and of physics at arterial speeds.

 

Those wacky Chinese made autos ... I lost count of how many bumpers simply popped off upon impact.

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That is quite a video. It is obvious that the pedestrians, bikers and vehicles operate by the same rules; go, than look (sometimes).

 

Fines should be high enough that people don't even think for a moment about trying to get through the light. They should be high enough that breaking the law HURTS! You're not supposed to think that the risk of getting caught is worth the minute or two you save when you're in a hurry (as most of us are all the time.) You're supposed to feel that the cost of getting caught running a red light is so high that it's just not worth taking the chance. You're supposed to STOP on the yellow unless you are right there and your car's braking distance won't let you stop. The fine shouldn't be $120. It should be $120 per month for a year, or else a flat $120 and you voluntarily turn in your driver's license for a year. And a second violation, you go to jail for a year.

Reckless driving is serious! Reckless drivers KILL PEOPLE.

You cannot make generalizations about all Chinese from that video any more than you can draw conclusions about all Americans from the OP's video.

I notice that many of the bicyclists get up after being hit. Apparently the Chinese are driving much more slowly than the Americans.

 

Who said anything about Chinese? I think you are the one jumping to conclusions. My reference was to the situations and people I saw in the video. I think you are concluding that this video was recorded in China and I don't know that to be true.

 

The posting stated Chinese intersections, the video is captioned in Chinese, and the people pictured in the video look Chinese. I suppose it could be from somewhere else, but that seems pretty unlikely.

Tom

 

While not Occam's razor....

ROADS RULE #3-O
If it walks like a Peking Duck, tastes like a Peking Duck, it's probably Chinatown!

 

Not sure what your point is. My comments were directed at the people's behavior in the video, not toward any specific nationality. Anything else taken from my comments is pure conjecture.

 

My point is that you quoted a thread containing the subject "Intersection cameras in China", and then stated later: "I think you are concluding that this video was recorded in China and I don't know that to be true."

I think it's a fairly safe to bet that the video was recorded in China.

Tom

 

Yes Tom, I did say that and based on what I know, that continues to be an accurate statement. When I first viewed the You Tube video, I did not read the title before I opened it. Since reviewing the title and the video, my conclusion has not changed. Although I also don't know this to be true, I am guessing you don't know anymore about that video than I do.

Allan

 

Unfortunately, I doubt that fines will ever get high enough to stop some people. Here in New South Wales, the fine for failing to stop at a red light is $338 (we have an indexation that increases the fines every couple of years) and we still have people running red lights. Nearly all the hot accident spots now have red light cameras, and they have signs indicating that the intersection is fitted with a red light camera on evey approach, and still people run the red.

We also have fixed position speed cameras, also well signposted that you are approaching such a camera, and still people speed through, and then complain when they get the ticket. Just plain stupid.

 

That's when you've got to start taking away their license, or throwing them in jail.

(FWIW, AUS 338 = USD 276 according to Oanda this morning.)

 

Oh, they also lose points with each fine - generally 3 points. Lose 12 points within a three year period, and you lose your licence for 3 months, minimum. But it still does not stop people from doing the wrong thing.

 

I'll try one more time. No one here has said that running red lights is good, unless you count russian road roulette.

There are some of us that think that individual liberty is good. Others think that traffic laws should be about safety. Still others think government corruption and false statistics are bad.

But I know we have some perfect people, and some perfect laws, and it really doesn't matter if anyone innocent gets hurt, what matters is punishing the guilty.

That would help explain why contrary to most opinions, red light cameras have not reduced accidents. NOte don't jump down my throat if accidents have gone down. In my own city, they have gone down 30% while the red light cameras went up. Luckily, or not, we also have a dot that measures things, and when you drill down on the data many of those cameras likely caused accidents instead of stopping them. Other places that have studied them have had the same results. Atlanta, Palm beach, etc. Some city's may have them working, but when the peer reviewed studies come together, the safety case is not there. The case for corruption is there though, as municipalities shorten yellow lights to increase revenues, or phish for revenue with bogus red light letters.

This makes some sense. Our worst intersection went down after news stories off all the accidents from red light runners. By the time the camera went up a year later accidents were already down. One thing that might make them work is to not allow the advocates of the cameras to keep the money. If the money went to the school district it might stop police from rigging intersections.

I would prefer if the point was to make the intersections safer. I would rather have resources put here. Most of those that are ticketed have screwed up, and didn't run it on purpose. That would make them idiots. Repeat offenders are a different case though.

Its a free country, we can complain if we want. My chief complaint is a bigger government on a false promise of safer streets. I know its fun for the advocates that get the revenue to vilify the bad person running the red lights.

agreed, and I cut you off and I'm sorry but more corruption and no increase in safety. I think we can put resources to better use.

That's a really different attitude than here. Don't Australians get traumatized in drivers ed like Americans.