How is that redlight camera related? I stop at yellows all the time because that's what you're supposed to do. Despite popular belief, yellow does not mean "speed up to make it through". It means, "If you can stop now before the intersection, do it, if you can't stop, go on through." The dummy in the truck was probably following too closely and not paying attention. The camera didn't cause that.

It's the same issue I alluded to about red light cameras increasing accidents. People often either speed up in an attempt to clear the intersection or jam on the breaks for a yellow. Both can and do lead to an increase in accidents.

Or they cover their face as they go through the intersection. :p

Even if he was following too closely I still wouldn't have stopped if the intersection did not have cameras. I know what yellow means but I still would have just gone through (w/o speeding up) rather than try to avoid getting a traffic fine. I thought if I try to avoid the traffic fine I'd do the right thing. Considering the money I lost on the car, the money I paid for a rental, and other fees & debts I acquired. I now question that decision.

Just for the record, it wasn't a quick slam on the brakes.

Sorry, but annecdotal evidence isn't enough to sway me. No more than me trying to sway you by claiming that a red light camera might have prevented my mother's near-fatal accident in which a nurse ran a redlight and broad-sided her on the driver's side. The fact that she walked away with nothing but seatbelt bruises and airbag burns was a miracle of luck as well as Buick engineering (how would you like to have been my father who drove up to that same intersection a few minutes later to see his wife's car a complete wreck in the middle of it?).

Such incidents prove nothing other than that the individuals at fault were driving unsafely.

I wonder, Moonliner, about the statistics you mention regarding increased accident rates...do they take into account injury/fatality rates? Accidents involving people running red lights are likely to be side-impact or head-on collisions, which generally carry significantly greater risk of major injury. I think a few extra bent rear bumpers is a fair trade, and in time, that anomally would likely correct itself as drivers learn to correctly approach yellow lights.

That's exactly my position. Always has been. Why on earth would I ever obey laws that I don't agree with?


I makes my choices and I takes my chances.

Hard data? Sure thing... Deaths went up as well.

Washington Post "Injury and fatal crashes climbed 81 percent" (Be sure to read the ENTIRE article and not just the hogwash part put out by "city officials".)

Colorado Study

I could go on but you can google more for yourself if you would like...

Anomally? I don't think you can count on that. How long have drivers had to "learn to correctly approach" stop lights? Over one hundred years and we still have daily accidents.

If Boston had red-light cams, Massachusetts would be the richest state in the union.
:D

A couple of years ago there was a big bruhaha here about the cameras. Mostly steming fromt he fact that the outside contractor was profiting from them.

This article is saying it cut down on accidents though -
http://www.calweb.com/kxtv10/news-st...RED-LIGHTS.htm

They took all of them out for a while but they're starting to come back. I don't have a problem with them but in one particular intersection near my house where they were installed, the intersection gets backed up as people slow to turn into a shopping center. You could enter the intersection on a green but get stuck and the the light would turn then flash you were caught.

And rightly so. You are never supopsed to enter an intersection unless you can get through it. If the light is green and the intersection is backed up, you're supposed to wait behind the line until you can get all the way through.