This Week in Traffic: 25 May 2007

Comments

2 responses to “This Week in Traffic: 25 May 2007”

1. 

   May 29, 2007

   Starre

   Do red light cameras result in “increasing risk and danger at the intersections these things are supposed to protect”?
2. 

   May 29, 2007

   Bill

   Red Light cameras tend to have an increase in the total number of collisions at an intersection. These collisions are mostly rear-end impacts from people slamming brakes to avoid being tagged by the cameras. However, the detractors fail to mention that while the number of collisions may increase, the severity goes way down. Right-angle and turning collisions are the most dangerous impact type, and red light cameras reduce these considerably.

   So, “increasing risk and danger” doesn’t mean anything without throwing some quantification in. If they’d said, “it’s increasing the risk and danger of rear-end collisions,” I would agree, but by that statement they are inferring that the entire intersection is more dangerous, which is not true.

   That said, there’s a lot to the argument for making a red light camera the last correction measure, after re-timing and geometric improvements. The fight ove these things boils down to the perception (and fact in some cases) that jurisdictions are installing them solely to act as a revenue stream, when safety improvements could be effected by spending time and money fine-tuning the signal.