Below is today’s column in USA Today. The column was actually written after I went to Chicago for Christmas and experienced firsthand the speed traps created by the city to trap drivers. My home town is a case study of the twisted logic that goes into fleecing citizens. Chicagoans are paying the highest cost for parking in the nation after outgoing mayor Richard Daley Jr. signed away a 99-year-lease to all city meters (and later accepted a job with the firm that negotiated the deal).
Illinois also has the second highest property tax rates in the country; the highest cell phone taxes in the country; and the highest restaurant taxes of any major city. Even if you try to flee the city taxes, you are hit with the nation’s highest airport parking fees in the country.
To put it simply, citizens are tapped out. Instead of raising taxes further, the city decided to find a way to generate revenue and actually blame the citizens. It installed a system of cameras that would make Kim Jong-Un blush combined with the shortest yellow lights in the nation.
Now Emanuel has backed down after years of his Administration dismissing complaints from citizens. His close reelection rather than decency appears the motivation. In the past, his government has defended the patchwork system of lights. Chicago officials insisted that other cities are also using the three-second light, including Boston and New York City. However, in New York, no red light camera tickets are issued until 0.3 seconds into the red light and Boston does not have red light cameras at all (and use the three-second yellows only downtown). However, Chicago is not alone in this perverse revenue grab.
The column is below:
It appears that politicians can see a yellow light when they need to. Facing a close runoff election and a ticked off electorate, Mayor Rahm Emanuel finally relented recently and promised to remove 50 red light cameras that made Chicago the country’s largest speed trap. While citizens have complained for years, Emanuel only saw the light when polls showed he could lose re-election to a relative unknown. However, other (less endangered) politicians are still seeing rigged traffic lights as an easy revenue source.
Emanuel first gave Chicago the highest number of traffic cameras of any city, and then in February 2014 he allowed for tickets to be issued under yellow lights that lasted 2.9 seconds. After the practice was exposed by the Chicago Tribune, the mayor returned in September to the three-second minimum, which is set by federal law. But many drivers still complain it is not enough time at 30 miles per hour to get through intersections.
I experienced that fact firsthand when I returned to my hometown for Christmas and faced the patchwork of slow zones all over the city. At three seconds, the light turns red unless you speed to get across an intersection. Thus, if you try to cross the intersection, you can get nailed for both running the light and speeding.
Braking on yellow
I found myself hitting the brakes as soon as a yellow light appeared. I am not alone.
The Chicago Tribune found that these slow zones and yellow lights have resulted in 22% more rear-end crashes that caused injuries. (The study also found that the cameras reduced injury-causing “T-bone” crashes, or right-angle hits, by 15%.)
Nevertheless, cities strapped for cash are turning to speed traps that were once ridiculed as a tactic of rural, small towns. About 500 towns and cities have installed red-light cameras, often through lucrative deals with private contractors. It is an irresistible temptation for many cities and their contractors (who receive a generous cut from fines) to rig the system to generate more revenue by posting speed reductions or shortening yellow lights, or both.
In 2013, Florida quietly reduced the timing of its yellow lights and generated more than $100 million in extra revenue. Likewise, a study of New Jersey intersections found that the contractor had shortened virtually every yellow light below the minimum timing to generate tickets.
The increased accidents in Chicago are consistent with academic studies. One study found that increasing yellow times by just half a second resulted in a decrease in accidents of up to 25%.
Most cities have yellow lights timed at 3.5 seconds. Maryland actually passed a law requiring at least 3.5 seconds; in Baltimore it is 3.6 seconds. Los Angeles and San Diego set their lights at 3.7 seconds and 3.9 seconds respectively. Philadelphia set its lights at four seconds to reduce the type of collisions now common in Chicago.
Devastating to families
This new revenue for cities can be devastating for families. A recent study showed that one in three Chicagoans has less than $250 in the bank every pay day. Yet Emanuel is handing out $35 tickets for six to 10 miles over the limit. If you go 11 mph over the limit, you are hit with a $100 ticket.
In Beverly Hills, one infamous speed trap hits drivers traveling downhill on Wilshire Boulevard with a short yellow light. The city just films car after car getting nailed and sends off a demand for payment. That yellow light, however, is still longer than Chicago’s at 3.3 seconds vs. three seconds.
Ironically, standard contracts in some states give contractors a percentage of the fines — creating “perverse incentives.”
Yet, these traps only succeed as windfalls for so long. In Chicago, while rear-end collisions are up, drivers are now avoiding intersections with red light cameras, and revenue from fines has dropped $50 million. New York City faced a similar shortfall.
That is, until these cities can come up with another way to trap their own citizens.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.
March 16, 2015
But if these cameras save just one life, aren’t they worth it?
Do they? Do you have statistics how extremely short yellow lights at camera recorded intersections save lives? Or does the extremely short yellow/caution light actually cause more accidents and injury? Perhaps as in Tyger’s illustration the more rational longer cautionary light time would prevent accidents.
If it saves just one life to cut off all children’s feet so one of them can’t run too fast, trip and hit their head on the concrete curb and die….is that worth it? (I know….stupid analogy. But so is the “if it saves one then everyone should suffer” mentality.)
But if these cameras save just one life, aren’t they worth it?
Here in the STL Metro, red light cameras are a hot button issue and the subject of much litigation. The issue of underlying legality is pending before the MO Supreme Court. Oral arguments were heard back in Dec. 2014 and a decision is expected later this year. Procedurally, most cameras here only take a picture of the license plate and a video of the intersection showing a violation, but do not conclusively show who is driving the vehicle. The ticket is issued automatically to the owner via mail, who then must dispute, under oath, that he/she was the driver. The other issue is that these tickets are not “moving” violations, meaning you simply pay the fine and no points are assessed on your license. A Missouri state law requires that any red light violations “shall” be moving violations. The lower courts threw the tickets out based on these two grounds.
On the civil side, class action lawsuits are flying. The City of St. Louis and other local municipalities and red light camera companies have recently settled one for $18 million. Others are still pending in local courts. I am not aware of the reducing of the yellow-light time here, but not sure anyone has looked into it.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with the red light tickets generally. From what I have read, they do substantially reduce accidents at intersections. However, when safety takes a back seat to profit, as it clearly has in the posting, I do have a problem.
In Phoenix, many intersections have “walk” lights that show numbers counting down to zero. At zero, the light turns from green to yellow, and the yellow lights are notably long, many people say. The countdown lights give drivers ample time to anticipate when the light will go to yellow, and the longer yellows make sure the intersection has cleared of traffic before the cross street gets a green light. This is probably a good way to go, as Phoenix also has higher speed limits (35 to 45 mph) on its streets and boulevards than many eastern cities, so it takes longer to come to a stop. The city also had red light cameras at many intersections, as well as speed cameras on the freeways, until the public outcry was so great that the politicians decided to get rid of most of them. The deciding moment seemed to come when a technician manning a mobile radar van on a freeway was shot and killed by an anti-radar camera vigilante. Sad that it takes such a level of violence to get the government to listen to their citizens and take action when the issue is really all about revenues, not safety.
In Houston we voted out those cameras. I got nailed by one because I turned right on red, and failed to wait THREE seconds before proceeding. Over 80% of the tickets were issued under those circumstances. I later found out about the three second rule which has NO basis in law, and thus those tickets were ALL illegal. This is such a scam that they should be outlawed nationally.
Chuck. That is an awesome feel good story.
Revenge can be sweet……and hilarious.
I assume Chicago is doing awesome. All those taxes must be making it the best place in America to live. They must have the best roads/bridges, education, parks, employment, crime rate and happiness factor.Tons of people must be relocating to Chicago too.
The small community of Bluff City, TN is only a short distance down Highway 11-E from the Bristol Motor Speedway. It is also a heavily traveled four lane highway between Johnson City and Bristol, two of the “tri-cities” of eastern Tennessee.
The Bluff City administration decided to install a set of speed cameras on Highway 11-E. The speed limit at the cameras is 45 MPH. Not too bad, but normal flow of traffic is usually about 55 MPH. The cameras are owned, operated and maintained by a company in Arizona.
A fellow got a camera citation from one of the cameras. Keep in mind there is no way to challenge or appeal a camera citation, or to confront the accuser. I have another story about that I’ll save for another time. Our hero with the ticket paid it, but that’s not all he paid. He is an IT guy who is most savvy when it comes to the internet.
He did a search and discovered the Bluff City Police Department web site was about to expire. He literally sat with credit card in hand waiting for the domain to expire, watching to see if the city renewed it. They didn’t. Seems that both the mayor and police chief were out of town, and both forgot to authorize the renewal. You can guess the rest. He bought the Bluff City Police Department domain within minutes of the time it expired and became available for purchase. Now, if anyone is doing a web search for the Bluff City PD, they get this result.
Redflex Traffic Systems, the Arizona company that ran the Chicago traffic light system, has been hit with a variety of corruption charges. See the attached article from the Chicago Tribune regarding the indictment of their former CEO on corruption charges: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-red-light-camera-indictments-20140813-story.html#page=1
Short yellows, especially making yellows shorter without advance notice, is both dangerous and a revenue grab tactic. But three seconds is plenty of time to come to a stop if you’re not speeding; four seconds is borderline forever. And if you’re speeding there should be a penalty; doubly if you’re speeding while traveling through a red light. It’s impossible to have human police officers at every controlled intersection but it’s not impossible to have cameras at nearly every controlled intersection. Pedestrians and other users of the roads, especially those not in motor vehicles, have a reasonable expectation that motor vehicle operators will obey the law and traffic control devices such as red lights.
The closest actual traffic light to us is about 45 miles away. One light. The next are in a town about 85 miles away. Those do have some lights at some intersections. We know what they are and avoid them 🙂
@ Libby.
The issue isn’t breaking the law or even speeding. The lights are rigged so that even if you are traveling at the speed limit, say 40 mph, and the yellow light comes on right as you approach the intersection……the duration of the yellow is so short that you have two choices.
1. Slam on the brakes and hope your car will not skid through the intersection. Not easy when you are in a crew cab dually diesel pickup. Weighing at least 8,000 to 10,000 pounds, UN-loaded. You have a lot of momentum and a very long stopping distance. You hope that your load will not continue on with its momentum and crush the cab (we have a headache rack http://www.pickupspecialties.com/Headache_racks_main.htm). If we are following a small car with a short stopping range, God help you, you will be crushed if you suddenly slam on the brakes. You also hope that no one else behind you will rear end you.
2. Speed up and get through the intersection before the super quick yellow turns red and you get a ticket. You weren’t speeding before but you are trying to avoid all the alternatives in option #1
Neither option is safe. If the lights were set for a reasonable time, instead of being set to deliberately trap, people would be able to safely pass through the intersection or have plenty of time to SEE the yellow and safely stop.
I don’t have a car so I don’t have a problem with this. If you’re not breaking the law you have nothing to worry about, only the unsafe drivers are penalized. This could also help encourage the use of public transportation, which is better for the environment.
They were doing the same thing in Arizona until they got caught. Most cities have gotten rid of their cameras. We did have some fun with the cameras though. There was a section of freeway where they were testing the limits of their high performance cars. The camera would take a picture of the driver and the speed which they could use for documentation to their buddies.
In Albuquerque some old man just got tired of it all, took his hunting rifle and eliminated a few red light cameras. Albuquerque no longer uses cameras.
Karen is absolutely correct. The Bay Area Center for Voting Research says Chicago is the 8th most liberal major city in America (17th if you count all cities as small as 100,000). Liberal = Taxes; Liberal = Spend.
Professor, you can complain all you want but you got what you (and your neighbors, friends, relatives, associates, etc in Chicago) asked for: a liberal government.
If you’re interested in lower taxes, consider moving (south).
Great piece.Of course, the tax and spend folks go back generations, the teeny, tiny mayor just being the latest incarnation. There does seem to be a dissonance w/ the weekend blogger, Lawrence Rafferty. He did a post whining about needed cuts made in tax hell Illinois. In your preamble, you forgot to mention Chicago has the highest hotel tax in the nation, 16.4%. That, along w/ the unions running the conventions centers and not allowing displayers to even plug in their own computers w/o an electrician, has driven business away.
Rahm Emmanuel, bad for his city, bad for unions and was bad for Obama. He is bad news all around.
“Illinois also has the second highest property tax rates in the country; the highest cell phone taxes in the country; and the highest restaurant taxes of any major city. Even if you try to flee the city taxes, you are hit with the nation’s highest airport parking fees in the country.
To put it simply, citizens are tapped out.”
Well, right, it’s run by Liberals. “Tax more! Spend more!” is their motto.
There should be a class action lawsuit against the city because of the crashes caused by short yellow lights.
It would be nice if yellow light times were standardized. Or else, how could anyone predict when they would be in the middle of an intersection, on a red light, and at risk for an accident?
A version of the “plantation” mentality that exists in Ferguson and so many other communities.
The citizens are a cash crop to be harvested without regard to either justice or the financial consequences.
Seems that politicians cannot stand seeing spare money in their constituents’ pockets.
Cities don’t seem to be interested in governing or safety. The goal seems to be hit the working class and middle class for as much as possible and give the developers, billionaires and corporations everything they want. Rahm is a perfect example of the type of union bashing, resident freezing crop of “liberals” we are now seeing. They talk about the people but the only “people” who matter are the corporations and the mega wealthy.