The Incredible Shrinking Yellow Light
By Pat Racimora on February 25, 2010 at 10:30 AM in Current Affairs
Whether it’s governmental agencies or corporate America, they just can’t seem to find enough ways to screw the little guy. It’s bad enough that the big boys in back rooms ponder ways to separate us from our money. But when the plot is treacherous to life and limb it becomes criminal in my book.
This one takes the cake. What is the difference between this outrage and being held up at gunpoint by a drunk with a loose trigger finger?
Here is what some cities are actually doing to raise revenue. They are setting the yellow light timers to shorter than the 4 second average. That way, they figure, the cameras can catch more people running red lights with red light cameras. Hence more money for the city coffer.
Never mind that this only increases the chances of intersection collisions, already the site of most automobile accidents.
Scott Thill of Alternet calls this practice “deadly profit.” And there is even a corporate angle:
“With all of the stories we hear on a daily basis, there is little doubt that the desire for ticket revenue trumps safety concerns,” Gary Biller, executive director of the National Motorists Association told AlterNet. “A quick current example is California’s governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who a few weeks ago proposed state budget including a proposal to add speed sensors to 500 existing red-light cameras. The reason? Safety wasn’t mentioned, but an expected additional annual revenue of $338 million was.”
Roughly multiply that revenue by 50 states, and you quickly get an idea why red-light cameras designed by companies like Arizona’s Redlfex Group and American Traffic Solutions (ATS) are an increasingly attractive crutch for America’s cash-strapped cities. But they’re unsafe short-cuts, because they haven’t necessarily proven very effective at anything other than generating ticket revenue — and accidents, lots of accidents. In fact, studies have repeatedly shown that red-light cameras can cause more accidents, not less.
Yes, red light cameras cause more accidents! Here is one example:
Anne Arundel County in Maryland has been running five red light cameras for five years, during which period they raised a fat $2.85 million in ticket revenue. Unfortunately, a comparison of accident statistics shows that the cameras have increased the rate of accidents.
Immediately after installation, the cameras sparked a 40-percent increase in rear-end collisions, and never looked back, with five-year increases in accident rates far exceeding a 10-percent increase in traffic.
Add this to shortening the duration of the yellow warning light, and we will fill our cities’ coffers as well as our hospitals and morgues!
by Ronald Scott
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