Re: Challenge every Red Light Camera Ticket!

You haven't thought it thru very well. The yellow is there to warn the drivers that it will turn red in a few seconds. If it turns red too qickly, then entering the intersection "legally" (i.e., on the yellow) doesn't apply (because there's this thing called "finite stopping distance").

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney
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We've started to get them in Metro Detroit.

I don't understand why they're supposed to be all that great. For one thing, it virtually assures that everyone reaching the intersection

*has* to stop. Not so with a traditional intersection, where people who are traveling at the correct speed can sail through green light after green light.

The intersection near my home where they've implemented this is a relatively low-traffic-volume spot. I imagine it would be absolutely miserable in higher-traffic-volume places.

Bridges with ramps just intuitively seem better to me.

--Geoff

Reply to
Geoff

Ever been to Boston? They had a few there when I was a kid (60s). We called them rotarys. They have a modified version here in Portland, OR.

Reply to
max-income

If you've got clear vision & they're designed correctly you shouldn't have to shed more than 10% of your speed (seeing as it's a 4 way yield). I've been through Europe where the roundabout is a slightly raised (4" round mound in the middle of an intersection. on off hours I've seen many people drive through at full speed.

The problem with round-abouts (true round-abouts & not these 1/4 round affairs) is that poor drivers don't try to "merge", they stop & wait for a large gap.

"If" roadway etiquette is followed a large number of people can pass through with minimal interruption and greater safety.

(bad drivers can totally screw up round-abouts though. When I was in the UK this past winter 3 drivers were banned from a private tunnel's round-about b/c monitoring determined that those 3 were responsible for nearly 60% of the morning's delay's! this was a tunnel used by thousands).

And yes, Bridges with ramps are "better" unless you're the taxpayer who's got to pay for them or look at them. But with many North American Drivers or newer European drivers (those who've gotten their licenses in the past 5 years) round-abouts are terrors.

Reply to
Full_Name

One of the news magazine took a look at several of the lights people were complaining about. The yellows were not abnormally short for the speed of the intersection compared with intersections without cameras.

Reply to
Art

And is that practical?

Reply to
Threeducks

See, that's exactly the problem. Around here, we have a lot of 'Yield' signs placed where stop signs should be. People who don't ignore the yield signs routinely (same ones who roll through stop signs) are conditioned to stop for them. I am, I must confess. The yield sign doesn't evoke the 'proper' behavior as assumed by the roundabout design.

I submit that waiting for people to start exhibiting the proper behavior will be pretty hopeless.

Around here, proper roadway etiquette means that you resist the urge to give somebody the finger while you cut them off! :-)

All kidding aside, if you don't drive pretty defensively (and somewhat aggressively) you're in for more than your fair share of wreckage around here. I've not owned a single vehicle that hasn't been struck in the rear at least once by somebody else, and believe me, it isn't because I'm not going fast enough!

The roundabout thing is a nice idea, but I sure wouldn't want one at a major intersection, and I'm not convinced that they're a good idea anywhere else, given the conditions on the local roadways. In good weather, they can be difficult at best. When things are covered with ice for the four months or so that can happen here, the roundabout is going to be synonymous with 'traffic jam'.

--Geoff

Reply to
Geoff

symptons of a larger problem.

---------- Alex

Reply to
Alex Rodriguez

Plenty of volume in NYC. Redesigning won't stop all red light runners, but it will prevent most of them.

-------------- Alex

Reply to
Alex Rodriguez

If an average driver can figure this out, why can't your local DOT figure it out. On low volume roads they work ok. On a high volume road they just slow down traffic.

------------ Alex

Reply to
Alex Rodriguez

If there is a lot of traffic in the circle, then you have to stop and wait. You can't make room to merge where there is none.

------------- Alex

Reply to
Alex Rodriguez

I grew up with roundabouts in the UK, many of them on major highways. Their diameter was large, and it was possible to traverse them at considerable speed most of the time. They did slow down somewhat in the rush hours but on the whole were pretty good.

Of course there was a difference in the way people drove. There was no "give way to the ...." rule (other than "Give way to traffic already on the roundabout"): drivers approaching an intersection at about the same time mostly followed the "After you, Claude." "No! No! After *you*, Cecil" approach, and everything sorted itself out on the basis of common sense and courtesy. All quite unlike the "Get out of my way, you @#%$&*, before I run you off the road" approach common in many US cities.

Roundabouts of a decent size do take more space than regular light-controlled intersections but are cheaper than over/underpasses.

MB

On 09/24/04 08:24 am Geoff put fingers to keyboard and launched the following message into cyberspace:

Reply to
Minnie Bannister

I'm assumming that you're talking about north america.. here in Northern New England, we've had roundabouts or circles for decades... ten or so years ago, many of them were ripped out infavor of a

90degree intersection... I've only seen one built since that time.

-Bret

Reply to
Bret Chase

you mean like this one?

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or this one?

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or this?

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I can go on all day... google is your friend

nate

Art wrote:

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Depends. Sometimes yes.

I've actually seen it happen on occasion.

Reply to
BTR1701

They've been here for a long time.

Try driving around Washington, DC.

Reply to
BTR1701

Interesting articles, Nate.

I especially like these statements:

From the second article: "...the Lockheed Martin contract prevents the city of Tempe from extending the yellow light interval where Lockheed's cameras are in place."

From the third article: "In Virginia, a study conducted in 2001 in Fairfax County found that simply increasing the yellow time at a given intersection by 1.5 seconds reduced red-light infractions by 96 percent, which was significantly better than the drop in infractions resulting from the red light cameras they had installed."

I guess my take on the whole thing, since people's lives are at stake from red-light runners, is that camera ticketing can be used, but *NOT* until the legal system is set up to pay a *hefty* bounty to citizens who accurately report a short-cycled yellow, and the municipalities are forced to: (1) pay the bounty without delay and without challenge when the report is certified to be correct (false reporting would be met with a stiff fine to counter people who just want to put a roadblock in the way of the legal system), and (2) Shut down the camera until the intersection's timing system is subsequently *certified* to be within the legal parameters (which would be somethng like 4 seconds for a typical intersection).

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

Did you read the articles you posted? Most site the same San Diego cameras.

2.8 seconds versus 3 seconds. You think the lawyers' stop watch is that accurate? Also they give only one side of the story. I love the way lawyers are crooks when sueing McDonald's for too hot coffee but here they provide your facts even though they are advocates for one side.

Reply to
Art
127.0.0.1 wrote:

I read all replies here about those bastard unmarked cops. They represent, along with politicians, beauroRats, world leaders, and scuzbags a control over our lives day in and day out. WE must stop the insanity, you do have a choice, no matter what it is, you have a choice. We are weak against them, is what they want us to feel. Sure we are free, but suppressed at the same time. In other words we are really not that free. They arrange loans to us so we can have the nice 3 bedroom house c/w white picket fence and eat home made apple pie. We ultimately pay the price, most of us are living around the "too much month at the end of the money" lifestyle as it is. But how many of the average employees at your work place are getting any further ahead? Ask yourself this If you could start your own business and never pay a dime of tax again, WOULD YOU DO IT?) And because of the sudden found tax loopholes those bastards have for themselves, you could take advantage of those too! So what are you waiting for? Come on, you guys are smart? Or did the public school system help tap in to less than about ten percent of your potential? Did you buy a self help/motivational cassette tape? And I don't mean to lose weight. Then obviously you have been suppressed. The class of people your parents and their parents, parents were able to hang out with would be in no doubt a long line of simple folk with little means to better themselves too. You needed to be born with in the stench of god given wealth, right? The bloodline of the guy/gal with a doctorate from Yale(In any discipline)That's the family you want to become part of, as your chances at true success is now ten times of those of you and me who are reduced to axe grinding through life. This is a true controlling effect. High fluting bankers love us, we make them rich, they keep the interest at a rate that we can just bear, so we can work ourselves to the bone. Then we educate our children by those standards as set out in the public school system so they too can repeat in life as we have. So pay as little tax as possible, cheat if you have to, don't think the BeauroRats don't. Challenge any of those carefully hidden tax grabs ie Red light cameras, Photo-Radar if it returns Etc. Folks these days it seems everyone's got their greedy F&*&^&& little hands in our pockets.

dan h.

I apologize for the long winded post.

Reply to
dan

No apology necessary. Nothing will change until people start voting from the rooftops.

Reply to
MisterSkippy

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