 Custom Search  How Many Photo Tickets Will It Take Before You Fight Back? GPS is 100% Legal and Pays For Itself. Click Here To Learn More. Longer Amber Times Destroys City's Red Light Camera ProgramMarch 4,2009Georgia: Longer Yellows Force City to End Red Light Camera Program New Georgia law forces longer yellow times that made red light cameras unprofitable in Norcross.
"With House Bill 77 we are now required to add one second to that... yellow light time," Norcross Police Chief Dallas Stidd wrote in a memo to the city council. "We along with other jurisdictions have seen a significant decrease in citations. This will cause a shortfall in our budget for this program."
According to a Texas Transportation Institute study, the reduction in accidents and violations from an additional second of yellow was to be expected (view study). This is so because red light cameras do not typically issue very many tickets to blatant red light runners. The vast majority of "violations" happen when drivers misjudge the end of the yellow light by less than 0.25 seconds -- literally the blink of an eye (view TTI chart). According to a report by the California State Auditor, nearly 80 percent of that state's tickets were issued for violations that took place less than one second into the red. By adding the second back into the yellow, that 80 percent disappeared in Norcross. The extra second also brings yellow signal times closer to those that would be appropriate under the 1976 Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) standard. Around the time transportation officials began experimenting with photo enforcement, ITE began to change the timing formula so that it would consistently produce shorter yellows. As data from Fairfax County, Virginia show, the benefit of reversing these changes and lengthening yellows does not diminish over time. Losing the Norcross contract is an embarrassing blow to LaserCraft, which is owned by the UK firm Public Safety Equipment Ltd. When the Australian photo enforcement company Redflex Traffic Systems similarly lost its contract to operate red light cameras in Scottsdale, Arizona -- home base for its US operations -- it packed up and moved to Phoenix. Source
Cities and Camera Companies use minimum or shortened Amber times to increase the odds of issuing more tickets. Either by causing a vehicle to accelerate quickly and being caught slightly above a low speed threshold of usually just 10 kph or by the vehicle maintaining the speed limit and entering within that first second of the Signal change. Why are Canadian Cities not at lest experimenting with longer Ambers? I believe it's because they already know that it would kill the revenue generated from the Cameras. After all, there's no money in saving peoples lives. It's like when Governments are so concerned about you quiting smoking that they just continue to raise the price to get you to quit. They know it's not effective and it still generates revenue. If they were so concerned then why not allow you to deduct a few months worth of smoking cessation products off your taxes? Trafficticketguru.com will be posting an original article in the very near future on Amber times in Winnipeg. It will be very enlightening... You will be able to see first hand the flaws of the system and how it targets good drivers and leaves the bad un-accountable. Stay tuned.... Larry Stefanuik Slow Down, Drive Safe and Keep You Money in Your Pocket!
comments Bill. March 9/09 11:38am I prefer the pro active means to deal with speed and intersection control. In this light It seems to me that consistency would go a long way to make driving safer. An example probably best illustrates this. If you drive the length of Grant avenue you will encounter about 6 or 7 speed limit changes. Add 12 school/playground zones and now you have 15-16 speed changes. In one section east bound at Shaftesbury you have a 70 then a school sign(50) followed by a 60 sign just after the school zone sign, back up to 60 thru a park/green space that I guess doesn't qualify as a playground, to 50 at Kenaston and Grant. Confused yet and what about the person who enters Grant from a side street? Pick a speed limit and hope it is the right one. If Grant was 60 the entire length with School zones policed during school hours only - wouldn't that make it safer? It would make it easier for me as a driver to maintain a consistent speed and adhere to the limits. 60 seems a good comromise that I don't believe is a problem - the heavier the traffic the lower the speed. Traffic volume tends to control how fast you drive. Radar doesn't allow for this patterning. All this about a major route while Taylor has posted 60 thru residential area and a section that is single lane. How does that happen? Which intersections get patrolled with cameras and why do some intersections that where controlled have cameras taken away. At St. James Collegiate the intersection there had a camera but my guess is it was taken away because the speed limit should be 50 (school zone) but not many where travelling 50 on Portage at that spot. perhaps so much so that the cash grab would have been a way out of control or perhaps the camera couldn't keep up with the infractions. But yet it is afterall a school zone.Is the program run consistently with safety the main goal or is it a political cash grab that involves balancing how much the city can take without upsetting the public. So proactive 1. Longer time span for amber light. 2. Speed limit consistency across the city. 3. Consistent enforcement - why are cameras set up and taken away - are there consistent goals around making the streets safer? 4. Consistent enforcement. If I go thru a red light with another car and my licence is visible while the other is covered in road dirt or snow - Do we both get a ticket for the same infraction? Some thoughts - Thanks for the forum - one certainly doesn't have that opportunity if hit with a photo ticket.
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