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Comment by bediger4000 | Hacker News Reader

Liberati says the cameras aren't a case of Big Brother nor a cash grab, police are simply trying to keep the public safe from reckless drivers.

Ha ha, very funny! If that were the case, for red light cameras at least, then they would just increase the length of the yellow light. That's cheaper than a camera, for sure, and has been proven empirically.

As far as speeding cameras, I might buy it except that in Denver they only show up in swanky neighborhoods that have a high-traffic street through them. Like on 1st Ave in front of the Denver Country Club. Or University by the gated "Polo Club" neighborhood. Never seen one on S. Federal, or Santa Fe Boulevard.

on the whole, I don't believe that an honest citizen can treat pronouncements about traffic cams with anything other than utter suspicion.

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Every country, city and county has different unwritten rules about speed versus limits and crashing through orange and red lights. As a motorcyclist I learn to quickly adjust, as the alternative is not pleasant. Changing the timing won't change the behaviour - but traffic light cameras and speed cameras do work. I saw, for example, the average traffic speed on Melbourne drop by 15 kmph or so over a week, after speed cameras were introduced.

They are incredibly frustrating, and I do believe that they should be constrained to high risk zones, but are often used for revenue raising. Outsourcing is a really dumb idea as mentioned.

It should be noted that speed cameras can only be used in construction and school zones in Maryland. They're mainly used in school zones where the speed limit is either 15 or 25 MPH (depends on the access to the school.)

I regularly see Denver's speed camera vans on Sheridan between Alameda and Mississippi. That neighborhood is only slightly less crappy than south Federal, and just as bad as any stretch of Santa Fe Drive.

EDIT: P.S. your name seems very familiar. Do you know John Darrow (retired from Qwest around 2002)?

I only see the speed cam van on 1st Ave, more or less in front of Denver Country Club, and on University just north of Exhibition St, where the whole east side is the Polo Club neighborhood wall. I've never seen one anywhere else in Denver, so I'm please to hear that a speed cam is in another neighborhood. But Sheridan is the border between Denver and Lakewood. Is it a Denver speed cam or a Lakewood PD speed cam?

I haven't looked closely at the logo, but I've only seen it parked on the east (Denver) side of Sheridan.

But what happens once people get used to the new duration of the yellow light? Do they approach it based on what they're used to from all the other yellow lights they've ever seen? Then the longest yellow light in the country is the safest one, until all the other lights are lengthened to match it.

This is actually a problem in the area this article is from. In maryland the yellow light is much shorter then in virginia, therefore maryland drivers tend to stop at yellow lights in virginia which causes lots of close stopping of drivers behind . If safety was really a concern then there would be a more narrower range of allowed yellow light duration between counties and states. As far as the speed cameras are concerned they only reduce speed for a very short distance once everyone knows where they are, its a pure profit motive.

Seems like VA drivers should stop racing yellow lights, and should maintain safe following distance. Even if the driver ahead chooses to roll into a stop at a green light, drivers behind should be able to stop safely.

Often it's not so much that people get used to it, as that the yellow lights are often set too short to react to in time (and safely) to avoid running the light. If people have to stand on their brakes to avoid running a yellow-turning-red, it's too short.

Some counties have been caught setting yellow times below the 4sec state minimum.

I always thought that the safety came from a longer period of warning until the cross-traffic started, not from a longer period to dart through the intersection on yellow.

By law, yellow means "stop if possible to stop safely". Drivers should expect the yellow light to be at least 4 seconds (legal minimum in most states). Stopping at a yellow is not a problem.

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