Short Yellow Lights Mean More Tickets, Money For Cities

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http://autos.aol.com/article/short-yellow-lights-revenue

There is a simple way to get out of a camera-issued red light ticket... plead not guilty, and demand to question the witness against you... it is an absolute right of the accused to question the witness, and a camera cannot answer questions... the trial judge may deny you this right, but an appeals court can not... additionally, many states require a police officer to be present to witness the entirety of a violation in the case of a moving violation... usually the person manning the camera is not a police officer, and is never present at the scene, rather he is in a control room somewhere sometimes watching the monitor, but usually not, relying on the photograph snapped by the camera to issue the violation, in which case he has witnessed nothing directly...

I am unsure about the logic of the legal advice offered by jrknothead, but I am not American and I know little about the US legal system.

But I would reason that as an event where a car passes a red light is a dangerous event where an accident resulting in death or injury is likely to occur. Then the yellow phase of the traffic light is a safety feature so it could be argued that the persons responsible for retiming the traffic light could be guilty of a crime of reckless endangerment of the general public or maybe even murder / manslaughter.

My legal reasoning stems from the fact that it is a crime under UK health and safety law for me to tamper with or defeat any safety device, the classic example is to use a fire extinguisher to prop open a fire door. This logic could be extended to argue that tampering with the yellow light on the traffic light is a crime.

Secondly many health and safety laws has the idea of "reasonable care", for arguments sake imagine that no laws containing explicit instructions or prohibitions exist on flammables and explosives. Then imagine that "aspie industries explosives" starts a firework factory where the following occurs.

1. Smoking is allowed in the finished product store
2. Steel drums which have been used to hold gun powder are cut up using an angle grinder and a oxyacetylene torch
3. Workers are allowed to bring electrical heaters with exposed heating elements into the factory in winter

I am sure that you can imagine that the hypothetical fireworks factory will catch fire and blow up from one of the three no brainier sources of ignition which I have chosen to allow in the imaginary factory.

But if the factory management has banned all three activities, and then as a result of a very rare type of flame breathing dragonfly (never seen by humans until 1 week before the accident) flying through an open window into the gunpowder store the factory explodes in a freak accident then it could be argued that all reasonable care had been taken to run the factory in a safe manner as nobody could have forseen the accident.

On the other hand if the dragonfly in question was a well known animal then to be able to argue that "reasonable care" was taken some efforts to exclude the monster insects such as steel nets on the windows of the gun powder store would have needed.

If a professional body has already pointed out that basic requirement is needed for safety reasons and no national law exists which regulates the level required for the standard. Then it will be close to impossible to claim that all reasonable care was taken if the person setting the traffic lights made a choice to disobey or ignore the advice of the professional body. In the same way as a person who ignored the “national explosive professional institutes” advice on how to safely run a firework factory might also be guilty of a crime when his firework factory blows up.

_________________
Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

<soapbox>
The problem with pleading not guilty in the USA is that the Supreme Court has ruled that if the incident resulted in an infraction, most of our constitutional rights do not apply. In many states, you end up in a court ran and paid for by the mayor (who has a financial interest in you being found guilty) where you cannot perform discovery, get a jury, or even have a lawyer paid for if you cannot afford one. It usually becomes your word against the camera/cop and the judge usually takes the word of the plaintiff's witnesses. I saw one case where a lady was given a ticket in Chicago, had hard evidence to prove that she was not in Chicago at the time the ticket was taken, and was still found guilty.

This whole traffic infraction thing is a ripoff to society because it is all about the money, not safety. A couple of years back, a 7 year old girl was struck and killed by a car whose driver was speeding and was not wearing his required glasses/contacts. They could not charge him with manslaughter (requires proof that he knowingly acted in a reckless manner). However, in order to apply the Supreme Court case on infractions, no person is to face more than 3 months in jail for any traffic infraction so this person spent 30 days in jail for the traffic infractions that resulted in the death of this little girl. Had they tried to give him more jail time, an enterprising lawyer would argue that these crimes are now misdemeanors with the resulting constitutional protections.

It does not surprise me that communities are ignoring sound engineering practices in the name of money. They do it all the time for speeding so why not for traffic lights too.
</soapbox>

Further, since the "witness" is a camera, its photograph is considered its "testimony".

Want to protest this movement? One simple idea, which has always worked for me...

Stop running through the yellow lights!!

I've never gotten a ticket for red-light running, even from the shortest yellow, even from the touchiest camera, because I remembered the part of driver education where they said that the light turning yellow meant that it was about to turn red, and you needed to stop. You should take your driving advice from the state manual, not from the movie Starman ("Green means go. Red means stop. Yellow means go very fast").

The problem with the above advice is what if the person behind you does not know about the camera and acts as if you are going to not stop? Many studies have found that under the conditions of shorter than engineering practice yellows added to red light cameras results in more rear-end accidents (in this case, it would have been safer to not stop at the yellow/red because that would avoid the accident). I have heard of quite a few road rage incidents caused by someone having the nerve to stop at a yellow light.

Now like Christopher of the Curious Incident of the Dog in the night time, I hate yellow even more because yellow lights really increase revenues for the fat cats. Yellow is the color of greed.

So it was ok for me to slam
on the brakes at the last second on a yellow
light? I have done it many times so I guess
I am ok.

I don't drive anymore thank goodness.

Too much to remember and almost got
me introuble once.

One other thing I've noticed is that if people are aware of a red light camera, many do stop when the light is yellow, and often, the result is that traffic backs up for about a block or more when there's a lot of traffic. I avoid being rear-ended by slowing down slightly at each intersection in case it turns yellow or red before I get there. If it annoys someone, they can just go around me and get that ticket from the red light camera in the mail.

Some cities where I am are now considering adding something to those red light cameras that records the speed of the vehicle, as often, those who run red lights are going at speeds which usually get them tickets anyway. Only instead of being pulled over, the person will get the ticket in the mail.

Here is another problem. Intersections without red and green turning arrows.

You are first in line at the lights and you want to turn right in England or left in America.
You can't turn because of the oncoming traffic so you edge out into the intersection and wait for a gap in the oncoming traffic but there isn't a gap so you floor it on the yellow or even the red.

You just got a ticket.

What if you had been "honest" and waited?
The lights change and you are still sitting there.
The lights change again and you are still sitting there.

Sooner or later either the cops will come along and give you a ticket for obstructing traffic or the hundreds of motorists banked up behind you will pull you out of your car and thump you.

I wood just go strait, I dont take turns without
an arrow

^I agree. If we get speeding tickets, that would be unfortunate of us... Sigh.

There is one problem to this idea of the quick yellow ticket, is the capacity for serious wrecks. That is dangerous.
Are they wiling to risk the lives of ppl who live there for alittle extra money....whats new there???