Six US cities tamper with traffic cameras for profit

Six U.S. cities have been found guilty of shortening the amber cycles below what is allowed by law on intersections equipped with cameras meant to catch red-light runners. The local governments in question have ignored the safety benefit of increasing the yellow light time and decided to install red-light cameras, shorten the yellow light duration, and collect the profits instead.

The cities in question include Union City, CA, Dallas and Lubbock, TX, Nashville and Chattanooga, TN, Springfield, MO, according to Motorists.org, which collected information from reports from around the country. This isn't the first time traffic cameras have been questioned as to their effectiveness in preventing accidents. In one case, the local government was forced to issue refunds by more than $1 million to motorists who were issued tickets for running red lights.

The report goes on to note these are just instances that have been identified, and there may be more out there, and urges visitors to send in their own findings.

-LeftLane News

This ended up in court in San Diego a few years ago and resulted in, if I remember correctly, about 200,000 tickets being reversed and the fines refunded. I am for better traffic enforcement, however, the red light cameras are privately owned and the owner of the cameras shares in the revenue from the traffic lights citations. That should be illegal. On the other side, traffic accidents at intersections controlled by those lights are way down.

Additionally:

Red-light cameras are often billed as a great way to improve traffic safety and prevent speeding. A few cities across America, however, have been caught short-timing their own yellow lights below legal levels, in what may be an attempt to boost ticket revenues by giving drivers less time to come to a stop. So how many anecdotes do you need to pronounce something a trend? It's hard to say, especially when the anecdotes in question support the abolishment of something as universally hated as the red light camera.

Six possible red light "gotcha" stories, some of which go back as far as 2005, were originally reported by theNewspaper, but were compiled into a single list of events by motorists.org. One city, Chatanooga, TN, has been forced to repay the $8800 it collected in ticket revenue, while investigations in Lubbock and Dallas, Texas and Springfield, Missouri, have uncovered evidence of similar practices, although no charges have been filed.

In the single court case that has occurred thus far, Chattanooga's city traffic engineer John Van Winkle testified that the yellow signal light should be (and was) turned on for the 3.9 seconds necessary to meet basic safety standards. The judge in question ordered the claim verified, and discovered that the light was only set for 3s—significantly less than the 3.9 second minimum. Van Winkle claims that the problem was caused by an accidental mixup with turn arrow timing, but there might be more behind the issue. According to confidental documents released in 2001, Lasercraft, the company behind Chatanooga's red camera lights, only installs red light cameras at high-volume intersections with an "amber phase" of less than 4s.

None of the other cities are facing court actions, but investigative reports have turned up troublesome trends. In Dallas, yellow lights at the city's revenue generators camera-enforced intersections were timed for just 3.15 seconds, or 0.35 seconds less than the Texas Department of Transportation minimum. In this case, a third of a second may make a substantial difference in revenue—theNewspaper reports that most (80 percent) red light tickets are issued less than one second after the light has turned to red. Ironically, Dallas is now considering scrapping its ticket revenue program, after new legislation forced the city to post signs alerting drivers to the existence of the cameras as well as requiring all towns to send 50 percent of their camera-derived income to the state's coffers.

Springfield and Lubbock have similar stories. In Springfield, residents voiced concerns last spring after the city announced its intention to slash yellow lights by 1 second at multiple intersections. In Lubbock, the city council voted in February 2007 to delay the installation of cameras after an investigation revealed that eight of the 12 intersections were the cameras were to be installed were already running yellow lights well below recommended safety minimums. Again, evidence from the investigation indicated that longer yellow lights actually reduce the number of accidents at busy intersections. The only problem is, long yellows also have a negative impact on revenue, which can make the cameras cost more than they're worth.

Ultimately, whether you take motorist.org's list of cities who are short-timing yellow lights as indicative of a national trend depends on where you draw the line between "trend" and "anecdote collection." But with state and city budgets tightening in the current economic climate it wouldn't be surprising if a bona fide trend were eventually realized.

Based on the above, It seems that the longer the yellow light is, the safer the intersection. Minimum is 3.5 seconds. Now, if lights were intentionally set to lower than that minimum then they intentionally put peoples lives in danger for revenue purposes and could have possibly caused more injury or death than would have happened should guidelines have been followed. That is HUGE.

Letting a private company with a financial interest have control over a public system that generates income for them is a little like letting the fox guard the hen house.

I never laughed so hard as the day I saw one of the cameras poles laying on its side, the victim of (apparently) an irate individual. I'm surprised every kid with a .22 hasn't taken a few shots at them.

On the other hand, they do work. However ever unfair they are, they do cut down the number of jerks trying to beat the light even though it has been red for a few seconds.