Having just been in Chicago, one of the most prevalent subject of conversation (despite the football season of course) is the ever-rising number of tickets being given to drivers. The Daley administration first made Chicago the most expensive parking city in the country with a corrupt deal that bordered on the criminal. The city was also accused of corrupt dealings with the company handling red-light ticking. However, none of this has curtailed the city contractors and officials clipping motorists for revenue in the form of endless ticketing. The latest outrage was the city reducing the time of yellow lights — a small tweak of a second that resulted in nearly $8 million in new tickets. Drivers are being treated as sources for revenue and hit with the equivalent of speed traps and short lights to generate more and more tickets.
Near my mother’s house in Chicago, she constantly warns me of such a trap that suddenly reduces car speed to a crawl. The reason is that it is being treated as a school zone even though there is no school nearby. All of her neighbors have been clipped despite driving less then 40 miles per hour on the main street.
The short yellow lights resulted in thousands of new $100 tickets from red light cameras. These cameras seem to function as a new hidden tax but the cost is not just cash by destroying the driving records of citizens – impacting insurance and, for many, their jobs.
Chicago may have picked up this idea from the Florida Department of Transportation which in 2011 secretly reduced the length of yellow lights and bringing in a windfall. Since most people have a common notion of the length of time, a small tweak can catch them off guard and snare their cars in a red light run.
It would seem logical that all yellow lights should have a uniform standard time to avoid this type of manipulation. At a minimum, Chicagoans have got to rise up against this type of revenue-generated traffic trap. People are struggling in Chicago and they do not need city officials manipulating lights to find new ways to siphon us more of their money (before they have to pay the over-priced meters of course).
Source: Time
Dusty.
The timing cannot be the same. Intersections vary. Some are simple four lanes, some are complex 24 lanes and all kinds of variation in between.
Unpossible.
We do not have stop lights on any with more than three lanes in one direction (that does not include left turn lanes). When I first moved to the Phoenix area the lights in Phoenix were timed so that if you kept a constant speed of 37 mph you would make every light. It was very handy.
Why, yes, Paul. Extending the ‘all red’ was exactly what they did in Chicago as I noted in my comment @ 11:50.
I’d guess it remediated the safety issue. People HATE the cameras, but no mention was made of drivers complaining about accidents.
I like Darren’s idea that the timing/duration of the yellow light should be standardized so that from town to town, state to state, you have some sort of an idea of how much time you might have to stop or go through the yellow light.
Paul’s comment on a four way red light for a few seconds is also a great idea.
It is a safety issue.
Darren – if we could just get them all to agree when the left arrows are going to flash. Some cities are before the green light and some are after. My wife is good at remember which city does which, I just wait and if it changes color I move. 🙂
It appears that someone would rather be snarky than advance the conversation.
Pogo,
What kind of an apology would you like? Write it out, post it, and I will be glad to sign it.
Will that make everything all better?
Darren,
This morning’s report said there were standards. Three seconds was the minimum for the yellows. I think they said six was the high end. There is a mathematical formula with inputs for that particular intersection for setting the times
I’d be surprised if this crowd were in favor of the federal government, or god forbid an executive action, regulating the timings.
What they have done here in some communities to help reduce intersection accidents is hold a 2 second red in all 4 directions. That way, even if someone blows through a red light, no one is going to broadside them. It has been very helpful in reducing accidents.
That’s a good idea Paul. I’ll venture to say it will be more effective in reducing collisions than the deterrent effect of red light cameras.
Yes, Olly. There are still a few Democrats left who will, on occasion, push back. Damned annoying of us, I’m sure.
Sorry for the affront.
Darren, those are excellent thoughts, especially “standardization should be made for yellow signals“.
“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet engineering the lights, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor Democrat incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.”
This tet also contains the words “engineering the lights’’ and “Democrat,” but I don’t see the relevance of either post.
It’s not just Chicago that’s corrupt. As stated in the main article the city took its clues from the Florida Department of Transportation.
Just when I think all of the idiots roaming the street, I see some have found shelter. It is pathetic to blame one for the fault of others for the mirror reaches back.
In my view the complete intent of installing stop light cameras is displayed by if the city lowers the time for a yellow light. I have serious issues with allowing a private company to share any revenue generated by these cameras with a municipality. The cameras must in my view be owned and operated by the city, but given the abuses we have read in the past about the roll out of these I feel the use has become so fraught with abuse of motorists that they should be eliminated.
One issue that mitigated the damage, at least in the county I worked for, was the district courts ruled that a red light charge was unenforceable if the defendant had already entered the intersection before the light changed to red. This was because the violation of the law required that the light needed to be red before the defendant crossed the stop line in order for the a violation to take place, since entering into an intersection under a yellow light was permissible.
There should be some federal mandate in this for consistency purposes. The federal government sets the uniform standard for all traffic signage and lane striping on public highways. The same regulatory agency should make a standard for yellow light timing. If that is done, there will be more consistency and it will be based upon safety and traffic usage rather than corruption.
Currently the federal government regulates the timing of Railroad Grade Crossings. Under the CFR (I don’t remember which) a crossing signal should begin flashing and gates lowered twenty seconds prior to the estimated arrival of a train. The circuitry in the crossing’ electronics must factor in the speed and distance of the approaching train to arrive at a twenty second delay. So a faster train will activate the signal further away than a slower train closer.
The same type of standardization should be made for yellow signals. Intersections between high speed highways would have longer yellows than twenty five zones. But there should also be a minimum standard.
And off we go……………..
Pogo
I wrote three short sentences.
The first contained the phrase “engineering the lights’. Will you allow that red light cameras are engineered?
The second contained the word Democrat – a word that has been used repeatedly in this thread – without your objection.
Perhaps the moderator will be kind enough to find and edit my third sentence that you apparently find offensive.
Thanks for the editing tips.
Funny thing about Nick. He has intimate knowledge of every possible corruption known to man. I wonder how that happened?
If only that were the relevant topic, docmadison, what a comment that would be!
Nick speaks too broadly with regard to the engineering of the lights.
On the other hand, of course we know he can never speak too broadly about his virulent hatred for any Democrat that breathes today.
Oh – except Russ Feingold. I do believe he would let Russ continue to breathe – but with shallow breaths only.
This morning I heard a program about this. The researchers filmed a Chicago intersection that had a red light camera installed. The yellow light was 3 seconds long – the minimum recommended by a recognized ‘driving institute’ – sorry, I didn’t catch the name. Three seconds is too short for intersections with many lanes. That could cause safety issues. However, the city lengthened the ‘all red”, when the lights in all directions are red, remediating the safety issue and leaving only the ‘unfair’ issue.
Pogo, Insurance companies make billions of dollars by knowing what is safe and what isn’t. Now, they are soulless b@stards but they do know safety. They have stats that show these camera lights increase the number of accidents, not reduce them. Of course, big cities are controlled by Dems, and Dems get big bucks from ambulance chasers. As Deep Throat continuously said, “Follow the money.”
Red light cameras are only a tax, and a random tax at that.
Studies do not demonstrate any increase in safety, but instead show they worsen it.
RLC is a random tax for revenue generation.
There is no other legitimate purpose.