Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganthrithor
I rarely had a problem stopping for red lights (there was one time in Boulder driving an old Discovery where I was pretty curious about whether I'd stop or not, but that is the only incident I can recall), but short yellows definitely feel unsafe; when I have to threshold brake because of traffic engineers' ineptitude I get pretty mad. I can definitely see how it would be difficult for people who are driving clumsy SUVs, poorly-tyred cars or commercial vehicles to stop.
I don't mind the idea of red-light cameras in areas where lights are properly-timed though. There definitely are plenty of asshats who seem to think, "Oh, it only just turned red-- I'll just go real quick because I don't want to sit in this turn lane for another five minutes."
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That's just the thing, engineers generally have nothing to do with the way roads are run (sadly). Most engineers argue that speed limits should be much higher, but increasing the speed limits instead of keeping them artificially low for what the road can handle would only cut revenue.
There was a group going around suing cities for having short yellow lights on the intersections with the cameras (they compared to the other lights in the area). One could do this themselves if they so desired as a defense as it was considered entrapment (YMMV).
There's also fun statistics showing the accident rates for intersections with the cameras is higher because people will slam on their brakes at a yellow light and get rear ended. It's not about safety, it's about money.