Texas Is Latest State to Pump the Brakes on Red-Light Cameras | Hacker News Reader

Texas Is Latest State to Pump the Brakes on Red-Light Cameras

nytimes.com

70 pointspseudolus93 comments

I grew up in Australia with red light cameras and super high penalties for running red lights. Seeing drivers run red lights there is quite rare. I didn’t think much of it until I moved to the Bay Area where I seem to see someone run a red, sometimes seconds into it on what seems like a weekly basis. It’s so common that now when I’m at the front of traffic and the light turns green I inch forward and look both ways, something I never used to do. As a cyclist it terrifies me as getting hit by a driver running a red would most likely be fatal.

It’s probably an unpopular opinion here in the US but I’d like to see more red light cameras and higher penalties for what is a really dangerous traffic violation that is easily preventable with a change of drivers’ attitudes.

I just moved from a city with a heavy police presence and no red light cameras to one with them placed sporadically throughout the place and almost no police presence (massively understaffed department) and I see far, far more runners in my new city. I see a handful a day. I quit walking to work. I think it's got a lot to do with driving culture/police presence as well. People get surprised when they get red light tickets. Maybe the cameras should look more obvious.

In Europe, automated traffic enforcement isn't hidden, it's actually clearly announced by signs. It effectively tells the driver: "if you break the law here, you will certainly be caught by a machine and fined". The goal is to get people to follow the law, not to write more tickets.

In the US, it seems to me that the goal is to fine as many violators as possible, so there is less incentive to warn drivers.

Cities used to rig them and the light timing to generate more tickets and actually create more risk of accidents.

The running of red lights is a big city thing. It doesn't happen often in most of the US.

Why not have regulations that specify the duration of yellow?

In Poland local distrocts use all kinds of stuff to rip off drivers (mostly: low speed limits+radar), but yellow light duration was never an issue.

They do actually have regulations that specify yellow duration. In fact, one of the most high-profile and borderline satirical red-light camera cases in the USA[1] was one where someone challenged that the yellow light was not lasting the duration set forth by law.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.digitaltrends.com/cars/red-...

I find it interesting that experiences in the same area can be so vastly different.

I live in the bay area (Silicon Valley, not San Francisco, maybe that is the difference?), been commuting 60-70 miles a day here for 22 years and I have seen a car run a red light exactly once. I remember the time clearly because it was such an outlier, something that essentially never happens.

Faith in a non-predatory system is the crux of the issue, not the presence itself of more cameras.

For instance, a well designed system only issues a ticket for an improperly crossing plate after an opposing light has turned green, and fines are proportional or variable eg- to a person's wealth or the extent of the violation. Ideally, there would be a manual review request built into the automated process, a limit on the revenues allowed from the cameras, and the source code would be open for scrutiny in court.

In the US through the 2000s, companies licensing red light cameras to cities were designing them to issue tickets immediately upon red and sometimes sooner, the process to contest was cumbersome in time and cost and heavily in favor of the cameras, and people in areas that were ticketed most were less likely to be able to afford a lawyer or else not equipped to test and evaluate the cameras in the absence of any oversight.

And so the cameras had the opposite effect. It made better sense to speed through yellows than chance getting caught crossing around a red, ensuring that collisions were more destructive and fatal. Others who were afraid of ghost lights would stop at yellows or else slam on brakes coming up to yellows, creating a high risk of rear end collisions.

Those effects linger today in many formerly camera'd intersections, and neither is an improvement in safety for pedestrians or cyclists.

citation?

To get you started: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14522657/ (2003)

This is pretty well-studied, so you shouldn't have trouble finding more through your search engine of choice. NCBI is a great place to start.

But...that citation contradicts the thesis.

"overall, injury crashes, including rear-end collisions, were reduced by 25-30% as a result of camera enforcement"

Any other citation supporting the post?

In the US traffic laws have become more of a way of earning revenue for local goverments rather than actually for preserving life. So most things are optimised for revenue generation rather than actually stoping law breaking. This has resulted in a large push back from the voters/public against such.

What’s the problem in flashing yellow for a longer period of time? Make a delay long enough for a driver to safely react. Otherwise why bother with flashing yellow anyway?

We have such thing in Ukraine(and probably other ex USSR) countries. There’s no surprise red light. You always know when it’s going to come and have enough time to finish a crossing.

It's alleged that cities will reduce the length of the yellow so that people will misjudge and run a red, thus increasing the revenue.

> The annual report for Suffolk County, N.Y., shows that revenue from the red-light cameras was about $28.9 million in 2017, with about $9 million of that paid to the vendor.

This is the issue. Yellow light lengths are also inconsistent: I don't know what to expect. Could be long, could be short. It's not always safe to suddenly stop, and we don't know which is which.

In which country?

Isn’t there some sort of a regulation on the yellow light duration depending on the max allowed speed on the road?

Living in a country with yellow lights, I never had a situation when I could complain that it was too short or too long.

I was taught that yellow means „stop if you can do so comfortably”, and the very few times I ran a red was definitely my bad call.

A sensible way for things to work is that traffic engineers interested in safety and flowing traffic work out a rule for how yellow lights work, and that's the rule for the entire country.

Usually your goal is that the yellow lasts long enough that any vehicle which isn't speeding and has brakes at least as good as those required by law, will either pass through the junction while it's still yellow or could easily stop before it goes red. Since even though some drivers will be speeding, anyone who isn't driving a way out-of-specification heap of junk has _much_ better brakes than required by law, this gives plenty of slack. The engineers need to know speed limits on approach roads, the size of the junction (remember, pass _through_ the junction, it's no good if your fast vehicle is still in the middle of the junction when it goes red) and slopes (which affect braking) and various other factors.

However the US is not, on the whole, a country where the sensible way of doing things has much sway. I'd be astonished if there's a Federal Law in the US that sets usable requirements for their whole country, and frankly it wouldn't surprise me if individual towns get to have local politicians just pick a number out of a hat for how long the yellow lasts for the one junction in that town.

> In which country?

America.

> Isn't there some soft of a regulation on the yellow light duration depending on the max allowed speed on the road?

Nope.

> Living in a country with yellow lights

Which? It's also possible that you have a local law.

> I was taught that yellow means ,,stop if you can do so comfortably

Unfortunately, red light cameras cause an issue with this. There is time after a yellow for those few times we make the bad call, because it's not always easy to judge in that short of a time. Red lights make this much harder, and may lead us to stop suddenly and unsafely (part-way into the intersection, get rear-ended, etc.).

Which country - Poland. Just checked, and it’s actually 3s regardless of the speed.

Red light cameras - yeah, also other forms of automatic traffic control. We have some long stretches of roads where the max speed is 120kmph, with traffic lights every few kms + limit 70kmph on the lights + auto speed radar. Which is crazy because you end up watching the speedometer instead of the intersection.

I heard an interesting solution recently - cameras everywhere, but giving drivers a limit of violations they can do without punishment per a given period.

Sorry, could you give a little more detail on the solution? I'm not sure I understand. Though I'm certainly wary of "cameras everywhere". Honestly, that's part of what I don't like about red light cameras.

Towns are careful when they want to be. When I'm out on an 80-85 mph highway, they're careful about warning well in advance, putting up signs that a light is coming, etc. But then there are also the small towns which abruptly drop the speed limit from 75 to 55 then to 35 just for their 500 feet of road. And they always have policemen sitting right there and ready to ticket. To your point, these are often areas where you might want to watch traffic (pulling out onto one of these roads is no fun), and this keeps you from doing so.

I think the bottom line is this: traffic laws ought to be designed to keep people safe. Unfortunately, many towns have a conflict of interest with the revenue certain laws bring in. I'm glad that Texas is preventing this. I think it incites officials to set stupidly low yellow light length s (three seconds, apparently the federal minimum by another comment, is rarely enough).

its federally mandated to be between 3 to 6 seconds. towns are free to choose anything in between. some towns that had 5 second yellow lights will change it to 2 seconds after installing a red light camera and make good amount of money from locals who knows the length of the yellow and attempt to blow thru

So cities change timings in an illegal way? How is this possible :O

no, typo. they basically change it within limits just to get drivers trapped

Where I come from our green lights blink five times before the light goes to yellow, then red. I've found that it's much more useful than having just a yellow light to estimate when I should accelerate at a light and when I should stop.

Being in said county, they actually time and report the light timing on the traffic tickets. They actually don't undertime any of the lights from my experience. We really do have bad drivers.

But what happens here is, they pick an intersection, add lights, catch people running it for 2 years, eventually it drops to 0 as everyone gets used it and then proceed to move it to another intersection as the county still pays a minimum invoice to the vendor per month. And once they move it people start running it and the cycle repeats.

The shitty part is the cameras also flagging right hand red turns, you have to basically sit "3 seconds" stopped before doing so by law but it sure as shit better be "double mississipi seconds" or you get a ticket. So people just stop making right on reds at camera intersections and slow down traffic for everyone.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The flip side of that is drivers who make a right turn on red w/out stopping - slowing down only enough to maintain control of their vehicle. Some also ignore the signs that stipulate no right turn on red when pedestrians are present, even if there are pedestrians in the crosswalk. I've been nearly run over a couple times in that situation. They're looking for approaching traffic and not where they're going.

As far as simply running red lights, some percentage of drivers - perhaps 1-5% do that at any given intersection. That's often enough that I have to look both ways before proceeding on green to avoid getting hit. That in spite of the 2 second delay between red and green lights. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is in the Chicago suburbs, not sure of other areas. Chicago did have a reputation for shortening the yellow when cameras were installed. I didn't notice that where I live.

Nah, Texas did the best thing, take out the useless red light cameras. One less Big Brother operation is always a good thing.

The best approach is to have all directions go red for a moment. Longer yellows encourage gunning it through the intersection. During the ‘90’s San Francisco had an uptick in pedestrians being run down. The all red idea was touted as a zen pause. Nothing came of it then. 20 years later the City has changed the lights, the lights go all red and the walk light goes on first.

And this is one of the (many) reasons why people are driving red light in Kiev like it's not even there.

Americans should consider shorter junction cycles instead. My experience in the US is that traffic light cycles are long, leading to impatience, and long queues building up at lights when they turn red, which may even spill into a junction further down, leading to further congestion.

That's in comparison to Europe, where the traffic light cycles are short, meaning less cars get through on each cycle of green, but at least everyone feels they don't have to wait quite as much. Red-light cameras are also rare in Europe, I have only encountered them in Germany, but they could be elsewhere.

I dont know how this helps. We do probably need an adaptive cycle, so that it can adjust based on traffic. On major roads, it can keep ot green for longer.

In south bay, el camino comes to mind, and it can be much better.

A lot of junctions in the US have 'intelligent lights' (I don't know the exact term), where there are plates on some lanes, so it only turns on for a lane if there are cars in it. That is mostly noticeable for left-turning lanes.

But in Europe, most traffic lights are programmed to act differently based on the time of day, hence allowing a smoother traffic in rush hour. Or in some European cities, the lights will switch to flashing yellow at night.

I don't think traffic lights need to be that smart, just scheduled. I have definitely not heard that European traffic should be significantly worse than US traffic.

The US uses all of those methods in conjunction.

And in my opinion, the problem is that the cycle itself is too long. If they merely tweaked that, the impatience would be lowered, and you might even get smoother traffic.

The cycle is entirely up to the local Department of Transportation be it a city, town or state. Where I live we have short cycle lights at heavy intersections and long cycle lights at intersections where keeping the primary/heavy road going longer is 100000% more worth it than some side secondary road with 3 cars every hour. There are also plenty of complex areas where all the lights on a road are interconnected for miles and the timing is set to match between them to more efficiently feed cars onto highways and move them along.

The one problem with us that might be different from europe is density. People usually work in further locations compared to europe, and lack of public transport is a major bummer.

I think schedule-dependent is probably what i mean. Lanes here do have 8 shaped measurement systems to detect near real time traffic, and in theory government could collaborate with google who has this data as well. Run some simulations, and extract schedules and that should be a big improvement(assuming it is not already done)

The problem is that American land use is organized in a way that basically requires driving. If you want to do something as trivial as travel from one supermarket to another across the street, the roads are high-speed, the crosswalks are far away and inconvenient (fast walk cycle time, slow red time), and on top of that you have to cross large parking lots to get to and from the front door. Just look at the environment between this Trader Joe's and Whole Foods: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.86918,-73.1275739,464m/data=...

We make everyone drive for the shortest of trips and then are shocked that we have so much traffic.

In Houston we have also lights programmed to rush hour so that in the core downtown area, lights are timed so you can make it from one end to the other without hitting a red light if you drive the speed limit.

The problem is that I don't think these lights can be remotely programmed, so after bad weather (tropical storms, etc) the power will inevitably go out and the lights will reset. And then it feels like they only get fixed when someone feels like making a 311 call. Repeat ad nauseum.

When I lived in Phoenix, they had those. The leading left green arrow would be triggered when there were three cars or more waiting to turn left, otherwise you would get normal green that needs to yield to oncoming traffic and it usually took the entire light cycle for traffic to clear.

The first car would stop at the normal line. The second car would wait a full car length behind and only move forward when a third car arrived. This way, you could trigger the "intelligent" light with only two cars instead of three and save yourself a full light cycle.

>I don't think traffic lights need to be that smart, just scheduled. I have definitely not heard that European traffic should be significantly worse than US traffic.

They absolutely are scheduled in the US anywhere that's population dense enough. Compensating for rush hour traffic flow is a huge thing that requires the adjustments.

I‘ve experienced some of the most insane red-light cycles in fly-over-usa.

The one I still remember to this day, was one that took 15 minutes. It was 2am at an left-turn into a t-intersection. There was of course no traffic at all. We haven’t seen a car for 30 min. before and after, but the fear of some traffic cop just waiting for us to crack was bigger than our impulse to end this nonsense.

Till this day it haunts me that there might have been a traffic cop sitting in front of us all the time, because this insane red-light was the perfect trap. What else he‘d be doing all night anyways? It took so long, we went from frustration to laughing multiple times. And then we’ve started counting the clock.

There are some in the UK but they're not that common. I usually see them on high-volume arteries in and out of London.

This would feel better but isn't it less efficient because then there's more stopping and starting? Like instead of waiting at an average of 5 lights for 60 seconds, you wait at 10 lights for 30 seconds, which means you spend twice as much time decelerating/accelerating to/from a stop.

But it will feel like more is happening, thus lowering impatience, and it will also mean that even if the lights are synced, it's harder to get up to a dangerous speed in built up areas. So it's also safer.

In cities, I don't really care about making it convenient for drivers, but lowering their impatience will make it safer for everyone.

Oh yeah, in the city you might have a point. I was picturing a limited-access road in a suburb, with lights spaced pretty far apart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited-access_road

Seconded (as a European). I also found the cycles in the US very long, they are optimized for batch throughput, but do not take human nature into account. I noticed people are much more likely to keep driving when the light turns yellow and then red, than in Europe — probably because they expect a long wait if they miss the light. This is especially dangerous to pedestrians and bikers.

Removing the traffic cameras seems like a bizarre move: if anything, I'd place more of them, with more severe penalties.

Roundabouts would help too. There's a lot of random traffic light controlled junctions in lower traffic spots all over the place that could easily be replaced by a roundabout without any lights.

Even where lights are involved, roundabouts drastically change the types of accidents experienced to the less-deadly rear-ends instead of t-bones (while also reducing the overall number of accidents too)

that's incorrect in urban areas. Most modern areas use cameras and sensors and traffic information to decide lights switching to adjust for traffic. Most rural areas dont' have the money for such data/sensor setups and just set up "common sense" timers

Spending time on both continents - I prefer the American approach in this. Starting and stopping slows down the throughput, also, as a driver, I prefer to sit still for 2 minutes than to stop and go every 20seconds.

Side-story, on the Burning Man entrance, there is always a multi-hour traffic jam (one road, thousamds of cars, for 70km or sth). A few years ago they introduced a system where they only allow the cars to move once an hour. That way, you drive for a few minutes, and then stop and chill until the next movement window. Way better than having to be constantly alert for next 100m moveme t every few minutes.

My city implemented these in a responsible way. They did not change yellow light duration and the police department selected the placement.

The result has been most ok, they missed their financial targets and there is a moderate reduction in certain types of accidents, although it’s hard for me to tell if that was due to the camera or the “no turn on red” at those intersections.

But the other benefit that few people realize is that these cameras are always on (including the LPR), and retain video for 30 days. It’s pretty difficult to leave the city without being recorded. It makes it easier for police to get camera footage admitted in court as the traffic cameras are a reliable index to correct time.

It’s not as integrated and creepy as something like the NYPD DAS system, but also doesn’t get discussed when these systems get set up.

It's because these systems are sold to people who believe the government has their best interest at heart.

Those of us who don't feel that are generally going to be against it anyway.

>But the other benefit that few people realize is that these cameras are always on (including the LPR), and retain video for 30 days. It’s pretty difficult to leave the city without being recorded.

That's a good thing?

I was missing the quotes around “benefit”!

I would be OK with the cameras if they caught only dangerous egregious violations. I got a ticket from one of these once simply for stopping too far short of the right turn line, then it thought I didn't stop when I proceeded to turn. No human cop would ever ticket that.

Something like 1/10 injuries due to red light running are due to failing to stop on a right turn. There's a reason you're supposed to stop before the line, a pedestrian can appear seemingly out of the blue and suddenly you run into them going 10-15+mph.

Should it be a lesser infraction? Probably, but I see far too many cars speeding through right turns without even looking to the right for pedestrians every day.

From What I understand he’s saying he did stop before the stop line, but a little too early, so when he then made the turn it appeared as is if he hadn’t stopped.

In that case OP should definitely contest the ticket (assuming OP didn't stop too far back as to not be able to clearly see the intersection). They'll have video that can be reviewed.

Video? Do red light cameras have video now?

The $75 in the article is piddling compared to the bay area. I got a red light camera ticket here (not debating the ticket itself, I failed to stop before turning right) and the minimum fine was around $350 plus driving school.

Yeah but median salary in bay area is probably twice to three times what it is in most urban texas areas. so $350 isn't a big deal.

Tell that to the person who drove an hour into the city to serve you your coffee.

Its double regressive. They have to drive more (so risk more tickets) and the wealth differential makes their fine higher.

> median salary in bay area is probably twice to three times what it is in most urban texas areas.

It's important to remember that medians aren't truly representative of extremes. While most/many might be able to afford it, there would undoubtedly also be those who cannot.

I wasn't a software dev at the time, I was a college student making $11/hour part time.

At Hesperian and A street by any chance? I got the same thing there but it was bogus because I did stop, just 15 feet before due to reasons.

Minnesota's supreme court shot down such cameras years ago and as far as I know it didn't turn into mad Max on the roads compared to other states.

It doesn't seem like there is a great deal of benefit.

Yea I haven't really ever seen anyone run red lights. Is it even a problem?

It's pretty normal to run red lights in San Francisco.

Might depend on the location. I've seen more red light runners in the half decade I've lived in Austin than the remainder of my life.

Another possibility is that I might be paying more attention to the problem now than before.

I don't think it's common to blatantly run a red light. In fact, it's extremely frowned upon in Western society, to the point that 99% of people will wait for the green signal even if it's the middle of the night and there's no-one around (compare that to, e.g. India, where I've heard that traffic signals are mere suggestions).

But stretching the green past the yellow and into the red? That happens all the time, and I suspect it's the vast majority of what these cameras catch. People justify it because "oh, it was just a few seconds" or "but it was still yellow!".

The all-famous „dark-yellow” :)

Where I live, it happens hundreds of times per day. And that's just the ones recorded.

https://denverite.com/2018/12/05/denvers-small-force-of-red-...

It's extremely common in Houston, Texas.

Also very common is uninsured motorists, unlicensed motorists, and unregistered vehicles; so make sure to have the appropriate coverage and look both ways even when you have the green light. I highly recommend front and rear dash cams.

Famous epitaph: He died defending his right of way. His way was right, his will was strong, But he's just as dead as if he was wrong.

My sense in Los Angeles is that traffic laws mostly go unenforced. This allows persistent, continuous safety hazards for pedestrians and compliant drivers.

We have a situation where running stop signs and red lights, speeding, reckless driving and gridlocking behaviors are rewarded and very, very rarely penalized. State laws require revenue from traffic violations to flow to the state of California rather than to the locality so the LAPD's incentive to spend costly officer time on traffic enforcement is quite weak.

IMHO, in Los Angeles, automated enforcement measures would be worthwhile.

You don't believe there is a great deal of benefit improving road safety despite the abysmal safety record of personal car transport?

Vehicular deaths are the leading cause of death for teenagers and below, often killing people that weren't even driving themselves. The vast, vast majority of those deaths involve trivially controlled and avoided law-breaking such as running red lights, stop signs or exceeding the speed limit.

I'll flip the question:

Drunk driving is the leading cause of vehicular deaths.

The government could require manufacturers include an breathalyzer in all cars, and make it so cars don't start unless you use that. Unrestrained occupants are one of the other leading causes. Again, we could make cars not start unless you buckle up.

If the reason for invading our privacy would be to save our lives, why not go where it actually matters and actually avoid people breaking the law instead of enforcement.

Why go with a system that extends police tracking to all public areas while minimizing the actual lives saved?

I think breathalyzers would be great, but I believe the reliability isn't at all there.

Seatbelts are only a protective devices once you are already in a crash, not their root cause. Modern cars will also already incessantly beep to you, and people stupid enough to buy a defeat device for them might as well fly out the windshield for all I care, their behavior isn't likely to cause much harm for others.

But I'm not at all opposed. I'm happy to do away with speed cams if we can simply have modern cars enforce the speed limits they already know about.

I'm much more in favor of infringing on privacy in a way to prevent law breaking than enforcement.

My point is: the current system of enforcement is pretty authoritarian. And many of us take issue with that. Especially since the stated motives of such authoritarians don't hold too much water when looked at thoroughly (as I'm trying to point out with this example of enforcement vs prevention)

Do you feel red light cameras reduce those deaths?

This is from New Zealand, but if the cameras operate the same in the US then I think some of the people in this article might not be being completely truthful...

"For the camera to not be triggered, the vehicle must stop behind the white stop line, or already be fully in the intersection when the light turns red."

"Two photos are taken. The second one is taken approximately one second after the first one and proves whether a vehicle continued through the intersection or just happened to not quite stop before triggering the camera. Police at the Traffic Camera Office determine whether an offence was committed."

https://www.driverknowledgetests.com/learners-permit-questio...

We need more automated traffic enforcement. This is my dream for automated HOV lane enforcement: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4lseF6UClbE. The trap belt would go to a re-education camp.

Do people want it to be easier to break the law? I don’t understand.

This reminds me of the commenters defending the would-be car thief on the Amazon Ring video yesterday.

In the US you have a right to face your accuser. This is often impossible with red light cameras.

Doesn't the fellow who sees the camera footage and issues a ticket qualify?

My understanding is that it's fully automated.

And often not a legal charge. They do it totally civil in most places.

The Sixth Amendment only provides for a confrontation right in “criminal prosecutions.” Speeding and red light camera violations are always administrative citations that carry no criminal penalty.

That’s wrong in many jurisdictions for speeding issues by an actual officer. Red light cameras are indeed civil penalties, which is my point. It’s extra legal and you have zero recourse.

The problem is that it creates perverse incentives for governments to make intersections more dangerous in order to raise ticket revenue. We really need to change things to ticket fees don’t go to the issuing government. Then this stuff would be much more reasonable.

Can't you solve that by, maybe at the state level, creating some mandate around yellow light time relative to intersection length and perhaps taking into account speed limit?

I mean, I'm no urban planner but an analysis around that type of protection should be a plan A, and distrust of government as described here should be a plan B. But, as per the culture, distrusting government seems to be a plan A ("but what if this perverse incentive is created..")

What I describe is plan B. Your plan A was tried and the result was as I described. Mandating timings doesn’t quite work.

Not so much that.

More like I really don't trust the system that the law is there to protect.

If me and the corporation that puts in the red lights were on a more even footing socially, I'd be more OK with it.

But the way it works, is they have virtual immunity.

So things like shortening yellows, putting in speed traps, etc happen frequently and are insidious and hard to remove.

Also, cops have discretion for a reason. I think skipping a red light is very different if it is a guy taking his pregnant wife to the hospital to give birth than for someone hot head who routinely drives in a dangerous way. The red light camera also discourages putting police out to monitor this, which might result in getting a drunk driver off the street.

A lot of American civilians tend to be anti-authoritarianism, either in the "Cops are racist, BLM" sense, or in the "Don't tread on me, Cliven Bundy" sense. Just part of the culture.

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