Red light cameras

[carolina]

Originally Posted by LawGuy

Carlolinalima - to be honest I have no rebuttal. Your two cents are sound and to be honest, I've helped bail her out of situations like this in the past several times. Not necessarily red light cameras, but other things (nothing criminal fortunately). I am enabling her unfortunately. I guess I do it because I've been close friends with her for 23 years now, since we were 4. It probably is time I let her learn a lesson the hard way. I still feel bad about it though.

Don't feel bad Lawguy... have you ever heard the expression "no pain no gain"? Learning is often not an easy process... not for her, not for anybody - you are not doing her a favor by bailing her out, on the contrary. You will still be a good friend if you don't; ultimately it will be better for her. This is not punishment... please don't see it this way... I promise, you will be doing her a favor.

 

[ut0pia]

I agree that she should be careful. When I first started driving, I was extremely careful because in GA, when you're under 21 you can lose your license if you go over 4 points, which is crazy.
Losing my license pretty much meant losing my life

Well, not THAT dramatic but everywhere I need to be requires driving, and there is no public transportation in this town, I have no money for calling a cab everywhere either.
And now that I'm over 21 I don't have to care anymore, but it's a habit, once you learn to be careful it stays with you...

The thing is though, with these red light cameras you never know whether or not there is a camera. In my neighborhood, I know which intersections have cameras, so I'll make sure I stop well in advance even if it is just turning yellow. But, in different places, there is just no way to know. A friend of mine got a ticket at one of the intersections with cameras as soon as he moved into this neighborhood while he was new and didn't know. Just the fact that people who are new to the neighborhood get burned means something is not fair about this method of catching people who run red lights.

So, I would help her just because IMO getting a ticket in that way is the equivalent of being a victim of a scam like mrblanche said

Of course I always sympathize with people who are victims of such unfair practices..


I know that in addition to the time it takes for a yellow light, there is a also a few seconds when the light is red for all four ways of the intersection. Maybe making that time longer is a better idea in preventing crashes.

 

[lawguy]

I know that in addition to the time it takes for a yellow light, there is a also a few seconds when the light is red for all four ways of the intersection.

I see that everywhere. I'm pretty sure they do that because of the people who try to gun it when they see it turn yellow, yet they're a 1/4 mile away from the light, so by the time they get to the light they're going 50 mph in a 30 mph zone and the light's been red for about 2-3 seconds.... so they run the light of course.

It seems like a lot of people these days consider yellow to be "speed up", and they think that the first few seconds of a red light don't count.

I can't tell you the number of times that I've had people yell at me and slam on their horns because I didn't floor it when the light turned yellow and instead slowed as I was supposed to be doing in anticpation of a red light. I've even had people slam on their horns when I didn't run a red light, blocking them from doing it. I also get people honking and flashing their brights at me when I'm going the exact speed limit. I often on expressways will use the cruise control to ensure I'm going the exact speed limit, and people can't handle that apparently. Of course, there's always the mature adult who not only honks, but passes me, gives me the evil eye, and extends a certain finger of theirs to form a certain gesture. All because I wasn't breaking the law like they would have preferred. It's even more absurd when they do it in school zones.

Ridiculous.

Don't get me wrong, I could go quite fast if I wanted to. My car has a supercharged V6 engine with 306 hp and can go from 0-60 in 5.4 seconds. It's a very powerful vehicle. I just don't feel a need to be like the majority of people I see who own the same car as I do and drive 30-40 miles over the limit on expressways and 20 mph over the limit on regular roads. I reserve that power to be used for an emergency, like getting out of the way of somebody who is about to hit me because they're too busy texting "OMG! Last night's party was the bomb. Tim is still hungover!" on their phone when they should be paying attention to the road.

 

[icklemiss21]

I would tell her to pay it, and be thankful that its just affecting her finances and not someone's life - it could have been another car or a pedestrian crossing the road on that corner, red lights are there for a reason.

But to answer your question, yes I do know of examples where people have fought red light tickets and even an example (in the news not personally know) of someone who fought a RIDE program, they failed the breathaliser and fought it on the grounds that the RIDE stop is an infringement on human rights

 

[grogs]

A big part of the problem is the length of the yellow light cycles. There shouldn't be a 2 second yellow light cycle on a road where the speed limit is 50. I think I go through 14 lights each way commuting to work and a couple are like that. If you catch it just wrong, you have a choice between making an uncomfortably fast stop (and quite possibly getting rear ended) or running the light. I think it's safer to just go through in those circumstances. I look at it as self defense.

 

[catfriend]

As a pedestrian I have been nearly hit by people running lights and ignoring the crosswalk signs. Once, the driver was going perhaps 35mph and missed me by about six feet. I weigh 100 lbs and he was 1.5 tons of Detroit steel. It doesn't take much imagination to see the outcome.

 

[mrblanche]

Originally Posted by ut0pia

The thing is though, with these red light cameras you never know whether or not there is a camera.

I know that in addition to the time it takes for a yellow light, there is a also a few seconds when the light is red for all four ways of the intersection. Maybe making that time longer is a better idea in preventing crashes.

Point #1: I would bet every intersection that has a camera has warning signs before the intersection. I've never seen one without.

Point #2: Actually, making that "all-ways red" time longer actually INCREASES red-light running. If you knew that as soon as your light is red, another car has a green and you would be at fault if you had an accident, would you be so laissez-faire about running the fresh red light? Think about it! Increasing the yellow is the most dependable way of cutting down on red runners.

 

[lawguy]

She is p/o'd at me as a result of my saying I didn't know how to help her. I think it's because she knows that I either do know, or could find out. I didn't want to just flat out say, "It's time you learn a lesson." because I'm pretty sure that's a good way to get mace shot in my face followed by some smacking by a purse (she can get angry). So, I just said that I didn't know how to help her and played dumb.

I'm sure she'll get over it. After being friends for well over 20 years, I would be astonished if she let this end our friendship.