red light cameras: products to avoid them??

Alex Rodriguez wrote:
>
> In article >, says...
>
> > To maximise their profits, the equipment
> >maker has the city sign a legally binding contract that orders
> >the city traffic engineers to turn the yellow light timing
> >down to the minimum allowed by law/code/ordinance.
>
> Do you have any proof of this? I can see this contract being used against
> the red light camera owners by someone who get rear ended at a red light.
> They can't be so stupid as to put something like that into a contract.
> -------------------
> Alex

Read down to the yellow light time defects section:
http://www.highwayrobbery.net/

JazzMan
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"Comboverfish" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>
>
> Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>
> > What they do is they post warning signs that the intersection is photo
> > ticketed, and the cameras are prominently visible. But, many of the
> > intersections that are posted this way are, in fact, dummies, there's no
> > actual camera there. As a result, you never know when your approaching
> > one of these whether they have swapped the dummy head that week
> > with a camera head (which happens every once in a while) so the
> > deterrence effect is just as useful, and the county doesen't have to
spend
> > much money on a lot of cameras.
>
> Oh, I don't know. Given typical government waste on 'clever' ideas
> like this, I bet the savings aren't that great. Just guessing here,
> but:
>
> Typical intersection installation cost, working system -- $275,000
>
> Typical intersection installation cost, dummy system -- $269,999
>

:-)

Actually the local daily paper did a report on just that. The dummy
installations
are not that much cheaper since they all use the same poles, camera
housings,
etc. After all they are used to periodically house a camera. Where the
savings
comes in is that the camera locations have to be screwed with all the time,
they
have to be calibrated/checked weekly. Also the cameras are fragging
expensive,
break down periodically and have to be fixed. The dummy locations by
contrast
can be ignored for months at a time since there's no active components in
them.

The other thing is support on the political side of things. Don't forget
Oregon is
an Initative state. The biggest argument they used to go to red light
cameras is
to save lives, as there's many intersections in the state (a combination of
not
enough dollars spent on road building - this state has a lot of tree-huggers
that
hate cars - and ****-poor road planning) that used to regularly kill
pedestrians
in the crosswalk, as well as regularly create massive traffic snarls as a
result of
collisions. So the public safety effect was way overblown. As a result the
officials know they can't go on a ticket-writing craze with the things
because if they
do it will ignite an Initative that will ban them.

Ted

The purported short yellow light problem is a red herring for the real
problem, which is drivers exceeding the speed limit or otherwise
driving unsafely. In my experience I've never encountered what
appeared to be a purposely short timed yellow light. I've encountered
misfunctioning ones, but they usually take the form of looong red
lights for the cross traffic. Or so it seems anyway.

You made this statement: To maximise their profits, the equipment
maker has the city sign a legally binding contract that orders
the city traffic engineers to turn the yellow light timing
down to the minimum allowed by law/code/ordinance. In which contracts
did you read that specific clause.

Don Stauffer wrote:
> John S. wrote:
> > The most effective anti-red light camera product I'm aware of is very
> > low cost, easy to apply and 100% effective:
> > .
> > .
> > .
> > .
> > .
> > Just stop at the red light.
> >
>
>
> I sometimes wonder- this really is a democracy, at a local level. If we
> did a survey on whether to repeal all traffic laws, what would the
> result be? If we don't want to have traffic laws, why don't we just
> tell our reps to get rid of them all? By far the majority of drivers
> exceed the speed limits. Why to we bother to have them?
>
> Or is the feeling that everyone but me should obey the rules, so we
> still need them. Of course, everyone else is also a me.

I know what you mean. I've driven a lot of miles and what I've found
is those who complain about speed traps, short timed lights and red
light cameras are usually looking for an excuse to explain away the
ticket(s) they've accumulated for violating laws that were set up to
allow large numbers of people to drive safely in close proximity to one
another.

There's another related line of nonsense that seems to pop up on this
forum every once in a while. Those who like to drive fast have
convinced themselves that there is some sort of natural speed limit
that we all will safely drive at and therefore we can do away with or
substantally increase speed limits. An autobahn in every city.

Interesting... I'll have to look into "initiative state" in more detail
some time.

If I sounded a bit negative regarding my take on the government finding
more expensive ways to do something, well yeah. If the real cameras
work properly, let them do their thing. I am all for hugely stiff
fines and points to those who blow red lights. (specifically, enter
the intersection once the light has turned red) AFAIC, these people
are just waiting to be murderers.

I was recently stuck on an always over-congested street with many
intersections, some of them highway, in a very short distance. The
cops for that burb were on foot, puling over aprox. three cars per
light cycle for sitting in the intersection during a red light. That
was one of the best traffic jams I've ever been in.

Toyota MDT in MO

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> "Comboverfish" > wrote in message
> ups.com...
> >
> >
> > Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> >
> > > What they do is they post warning signs that the intersection is photo
> > > ticketed, and the cameras are prominently visible. But, many of the
> > > intersections that are posted this way are, in fact, dummies, there's no
> > > actual camera there. As a result, you never know when your approaching
> > > one of these whether they have swapped the dummy head that week
> > > with a camera head (which happens every once in a while) so the
> > > deterrence effect is just as useful, and the county doesen't have to
> spend
> > > much money on a lot of cameras.
> >
> > Oh, I don't know. Given typical government waste on 'clever' ideas
> > like this, I bet the savings aren't that great. Just guessing here,
> > but:
> >
> > Typical intersection installation cost, working system -- $275,000
> >
> > Typical intersection installation cost, dummy system -- $269,999
> >
>
> :-)
>
> Actually the local daily paper did a report on just that. The dummy
> installations
> are not that much cheaper since they all use the same poles, camera
> housings,
> etc. After all they are used to periodically house a camera. Where the
> savings
> comes in is that the camera locations have to be screwed with all the time,
> they
> have to be calibrated/checked weekly. Also the cameras are fragging
> expensive,
> break down periodically and have to be fixed. The dummy locations by
> contrast
> can be ignored for months at a time since there's no active components in
> them.
>
> The other thing is support on the political side of things. Don't forget
> Oregon is
> an Initative state. The biggest argument they used to go to red light
> cameras is
> to save lives, as there's many intersections in the state (a combination of
> not
> enough dollars spent on road building - this state has a lot of tree-huggers
> that
> hate cars - and ****-poor road planning) that used to regularly kill
> pedestrians
> in the crosswalk, as well as regularly create massive traffic snarls as a
> result of
> collisions. So the public safety effect was way overblown. As a result the
> officials know they can't go on a ticket-writing craze with the things
> because if they
> do it will ignite an Initative that will ban them.
>
> Ted

If they would use them for what they are supposed to be for in my city, it
would good. It is a revenue getter here. They have the ability to make the
interesections safer by adjusting the yellows for longer, safer times and
even a delay before it turns green on the other side, but they don't. Here,
they put in a camera, didnt change the switch time over to the other side,
and instead set the yellows 0.1 second quicker and actually to an illegal
value of under 3 seconds. Not very safe at all.

On Wed, 29 Jun 2005, ed wrote:

> If they would use them for what they are supposed to be for in my city,
> it would good. It is a revenue getter here. They have the ability to
> make the interesections safer by adjusting the yellows for longer, safer
> times and even a delay before it turns green on the other side, but they
> don't. Here, they put in a camera, didnt change the switch time over to
> the other side, and instead set the yellows 0.1 second quicker and
> actually to an illegal value of under 3 seconds. Not very safe at all.

It amazes me that clearance time (during which all traffic has a red
light) is an optional and variable traffic light mode. Colorado has
had clearance time built into all intersections for at least two and a
half decades. I learned to drive there and did so for many years.
When I moved to Oregon, it was a real shock to discover that there's no
such clearance time there. Ditto many intersections in Michigan, and many
in Ontario.

Relatively long yellows and a few seconds' clearance time are known and
robustly shown to cut red-light running and related injury, death and
property damage dramatically, usually down to negligible levels. That we
mess around with any other "countermeasure" is telling and sad.

DS

Daniel J. Stern wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Jun 2005, ed wrote:
>
>
>>If they would use them for what they are supposed to be for in my city,
>>it would good. It is a revenue getter here. They have the ability to
>>make the interesections safer by adjusting the yellows for longer, safer
>>times and even a delay before it turns green on the other side, but they
>>don't. Here, they put in a camera, didnt change the switch time over to
>>the other side, and instead set the yellows 0.1 second quicker and
>>actually to an illegal value of under 3 seconds. Not very safe at all.
>
>
> It amazes me that clearance time (during which all traffic has a red
> light) is an optional and variable traffic light mode. Colorado has
> had clearance time built into all intersections for at least two and a
> half decades. I learned to drive there and did so for many years.
> When I moved to Oregon, it was a real shock to discover that there's no
> such clearance time there. Ditto many intersections in Michigan, and many
> in Ontario.
>
> Relatively long yellows and a few seconds' clearance time are known and
> robustly shown to cut red-light running and related injury, death and
> property damage dramatically, usually down to negligible levels. That we
> mess around with any other "countermeasure" is telling and sad.
>
> DS

There's always got to be someone to blame, and someone to crack down on.
Just letting the engineers do their thing has never been a popular
solution, unfortunately.

nate

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replace "fly" with "com" to reply.
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For more info about red light cams look at the free of charge, non
commercial site http://www.highwayrobbery.net

JazzMan wrote:
> Don Stauffer wrote:
>
>>John S. wrote:
>>
>>>The most effective anti-red light camera product I'm aware of is very
>>>low cost, easy to apply and 100% effective:
>>>.
>>>.
>>>.
>>>.
>>>.
>>>Just stop at the red light.
>>>
>>
>>I sometimes wonder- this really is a democracy, at a local level. If we
>>did a survey on whether to repeal all traffic laws, what would the
>>result be? If we don't want to have traffic laws, why don't we just
>>tell our reps to get rid of them all? By far the majority of drivers
>>exceed the speed limits. Why to we bother to have them?
>>
>>Or is the feeling that everyone but me should obey the rules, so we
>>still need them. Of course, everyone else is also a me.
>
>
>
> The biggest flaw I can see here is that people assume,
> incorrectly I might add, that the yellow timing is set
> to a safe number when red light cameras are install. The
> fact is that there is a minimum and maximum timing allowed
> by most state laws and ordinance/codes. Most traffic
> engineers set the yellow time to around the middle of that
> range, sometimes a slight bit to the longer side of the
> middle. Why? It promotes safe driving. If the time is set
> to the bare minimum then people will be more likely to slam
> on their brakes on yellow and cause an accident. It also
> promotes yellow light running because people will feel,
> correctly, that there is likely to be much less time to
> stop before the light turns red and they're more likely
> to decide to try and beat the light instead.
>
> Now, most red light camera programs in this country are
> actually private affairs where the equipment maker offers
> to come set up the hundreds of thousands of dollars of
> cameras and recording equipment for free, for a cut of
> the ticket profits. To maximise their profits, the equipment
> maker has the city sign a legally binding contract that orders
> the city traffic engineers to turn the yellow light timing
> down to the minimum allowed by law/code/ordinance. This
> ensures that the most number of people will get caught in
> the intersection when the light turns red, by minimizing the
> time that drivers have to react and stop.
>
> Now, there's a clear conflict of interest here between
> safety and corporate profits. To me, it should seem that
> safety needs to always win out. Because cities that promote
> dangerous driving and increased accidents are not cities
> that I want to drive in, I specifically avoid driving in
> or through any cities that enact red light camera systems,
> and I send letters to retailers and the city explaining
> why I choose to no longer shop in or visit their city.
>
> JazzMan

When one receives a 'red light camera' ticket it is imprinted on the ticket
as to what the yellow time was and how long the light was red while it was
snapping off pics down to the tenth of a second (with pics of your car). I
also have used high end video equipment to record in the 30'ths of a second
and actually can tell how long the yellow bulb takes to go from yellow to
dark while the red comes on. I dont need to but I can tell how long the
light glows yellow after turning over to red. Now if anyone wants to play,
drive up to the stop line running over both sensors at about 5-7 MPH or so
and stop abruptly. You'll get all sorts of flashes (two) and the camera will
use its film but you wont be guilty of running the light. They have to hand
sort those and the film gets used. Whatever you do dont go over that line
more than a few inches or you will go in the KEEP pile.

The cameras here (Maryland) flash during the day as well as at night. I
guess they want to be darn sure they light your plate well and avoid any
shadows etc. They supposedly are making digital versions which will not
flash and will take a picture of the driver also. The spray will of course
be rendered useless then. Now, I dont know why they need to photo the driver
since the tag owner if the one who gets the ticket. More invasion of privacy
I guess, like night vision to see if you have your seatbelt on. (yes
Delaware its in your state)



It is also possible to run over the first sensor as the light is about to
turn green then as you run over the second sesor, and the light turns green
by then, you'll get your picture taken running a GREEN light. I'd only
attempt this on a intersection that you know is generating illegal ticket
pictures under 3.0 seconds or your again in teh "KEEP" pile.