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Comment by autoexec | Hacker News Reader

> Pedestrians continue to die in disturbing numbers. Things like speed bumps, red light cameras, and more signage are virtually useless.

Haven't red light cameras been linked to increases in accidents? I'm pretty sure I've read it was in part due to decreasing the length of yellow lights to try to increase revenue.

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Yep, exactly. My city went the other way -- instead of red light cameras, we increased the time on the yellow light a little bit, and introduced a small delay between when one signal turns red and the next signal turns green. So we got less accidents, and less crazy panic stops on yellow lights. Win, win.

I believe the best practice is actually to lengthen the yellow light time when adding a red light camera. Presumably shortening the yellow light time is dangerous whether there's a camera or not.

There were a few intersections in a city I used to live in, where they set up redlight cameras and quickly figured out why people were running the lights. When they changed the order that the lights changed, suddenly nobody ran red lights anymore.

I can't remember the exact reason anymore, but it was pretty interesting. Once they fixed the issue, they deactivated the cameras lol.

> Haven't red light cameras been linked to increases in accidents?

An increase in minor accidents, and decrease in major accidents involving death, which is exactly what you want.

I'd be interested in seeing data on this claim. The only people causing fender benders by panic stopping at every yellow light are the same people already paying attention to traffic signals to begin with. Major accidents are caused by people who blow the light entirely (e.g. drunk), not the folks who run a "pink" light.

well, you don’t actually want the increase in minor accidents.

So install roundabouts instead. No need for red light cameras or traffic lights, and you reduce the most serious perpendicular and head on crashes to nothing.

Yeah most cities are removing red light cameras, it's been universally accepted as a failed experiment.

I think distracted driving is the problem IMO. I cannot go anywhere without seeing people driving while looking at their phones and cops right next to them not doing anything about it.

> Yeah most cities are removing red light cameras, it's been universally accepted as a failed experiment.

This is bullshit. People just don't like them. People don't like having to stop at yellow lights, including the people setting the laws.

They went down in flames here in Tucson.

https://tucson.com/news/local/no-more-tickets-from-tucson-s-...

Most tickets are for rolling right on red.

I don't think that's true. The data are more complicated: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/05049/

Same here. People messing with their phones are the new drunk drivers. Texting, messing with stuff on Waze/Maps, changing songs on spotify, etc...

I heard that in IL police are riding around in semi trucks so they can peer down into tall SUVs and catch drivers playing with their phones. Not at all a perfect solution, but it's a start.

Why not just stick a camera on top of a pole on the car so they can look downwards and get proof at the same time.

But why! It's so easy to find a distracted driver driving recklessly these days. Whether it's failure to maintain a lane, maintain a speed, or failure to signal you don't need a semi truck to enforce it.

I think the idea is that they want to catch people specifically for cell phone use. I get the feeling they've got some harsh penalties for holding a phone at all while driving.

They can pull 1000 people over for various offenses like drifting out of their lanes or failure to signal but that isn't going to put fear into people like it would if all of those 1000 people were busted for driving while holding a cell phone.

People tend to overestimate their ability to drive well while playing with their phones and if you're caught but the officer doesn't see it in your hands it only takes a second to drop it into the seat next to you.

I disagree (though my state seems to not). What better way to put the fear of enforcement into people than to say - and have on dash cam, this is a reckless driver that is drifting and making poorer decisions than a drunk driver.

And to be able to receive this ticket readily, with no ability to hide a cell phone or claim to be in a navigation app. And it applies to other major causes of distracted driving accidents: drinking, distracting passengers to the driver, eating, and whatever else.

In the time before dash cams, there was the option that this would be a subjective offense, an officer's word against the perpetrator, and so many of these are "secondary" offenses (a warning and reason to pull over for something else). But now that every officer has a dash cam, they can be objectively evidenced.

I think the issue is that people see the reckless driver and think "That guy deserved to be ticketed but I would never drive so recklessly while I'm texting on the road! I'm perfectly aware of everything and so I don't have to change my behavior going forward" while seeing people busted for holding a phone regardless of how they drove tells them that if they are seen texting on the road they'll get in trouble even though they are "flawless" drivers.

a dash cam might see someone holding a cell phone to their face, but people texting or checking social media sites tend to keep their phones in their laps which is why police want the birds-eye view of a semi to spot them. Bikes have been used at intersections but with low held phones and high SUVs that wasn't always very effective.

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