Our position: Lawmakers failed on red-light cameras, but locals...

The Florida Legislature once again shamelessly stumbled on the issue of red-light cameras.

[More Sentinel nonsense]

I really wish the Sentinel would disclose whatever financial connection they have to the red-light debate. They refuse to give equal time to both sides of the story, and have been nothing but shameless cheerleaders for cameras since the debate began. How about running some stories about the multitude of localities that tried the cameras, and then got rid of them? How about running a story on how the localities propose to circumvent peoples' Sixth and Seventh Amendment rights by making the violation a bogus "code enforcement" issue because they KNOW they'd never get convictions otherwise? Mostly I'd like to see what kind of money the Sentinel editorial staff has riding on this issue, because it's painfully obvious someone has a special interest in it that's making the paper a public laughingstock when it comes to fair and balanced reporting and part of the reason they'll never see a dime from me for their substandard rag.

[matt]

The answer is to synchronize the lights to stay green long enough to allow traffic to flow. One only has to sit at a red light, have it turn green and then the very next light turns red to see why people run the lights. How about having FDOT do their job smoothing the flow of traffic and stop pushing for this government money grab.

[Slim Ashley]

You are reading the Sentinel. Follow the money.

[The Original Sam]

matt wrote:

The answer is to synchronize the lights to stay green long enough to allow traffic to flow. One only has to sit at a red light, have it turn green and then the very next light turns red to see why people run the lights. How about having FDOT do their job smoothing the flow of traffic and stop pushing for this government money grab.

Not just FDOT but the cities and counties also. It's extremely frustrating when you have to stop at most lights. Why not have a hierarchy of traffic flow: The main roads have priority and are timed appropriately, followed by the secondary roads being timed as well as possible, and finally the teriary roads getting a green on the timing of the primary and secondary roads. Doing this would help reduce road frustration and likely lower the incidence of red light running from sheer frustration.

[dudley doright]

Who would have thunk it?? A newspaper advocating big brother type activities.
All of the preceding comments are correct in my opinion. Another angle is we waste more fuel at stop lights and no one seems to be concerned with that as an issue.

[Lamar]

"Streets will be safer if communities push ahead to set up cameras to catch red-light runners at dangerous intersections."

[Citation needed]

[Mach II]

So if you loan your vehicle to someone and they "snapped" running a red light who gets the ticket, the vehicle or the owner of the vehicle?

[Mach II]

If the light malfunctions or the camera (or both) what happens in that instance? It seems like there are any number of things that could happen which might cause people to be unfairly ticketed. The city might eventually be opening themselves up for a class action suit down the road (like what is going to happen to the expressway authority).

[Freerider-Dayton a]

The Original Sam wrote:

<quoted text>
Not just FDOT but the cities and counties also. It's extremely frustrating when you have to stop at most lights. Why not have a hierarchy of traffic flow: The main roads have priority and are timed appropriately, followed by the secondary roads being timed as well as possible, and finally the teriary roads getting a green on the timing of the primary and secondary roads. Doing this would help reduce road frustration and likely lower the incidence of red light running from sheer frustration.

Most replies on here I agree with. The need to keep traffic flowing also saves gas. No way will I pay a ticket if someone else is driving my vehicle & I would fight it in court if I got one.(I never would go through a red light) If a cop sees me do this, then I will take the ticket. Cameras cost too much, are not certified/checked for reliablilty regularly & they do malfunction. They haven't worked in other large cities. it's a huge waste of money. The Sentinel is pushing this, money in "their" pockets is why. Doesn't take smarts to figure that one out. NO to cameras.

[Part I]

WE DISAGREE WITH THIS PUBLISHED OPINION- WE DO NOT WANT THE PROPAGATION OF THESE RED-LIGHT CAMERAS IN OUR STATE!!!

And as someone that lost a family member to a red-light runner, I feel I have a right to argue this subject in this forum:

The A.G.'s office already made a decision that there has to be a state-wide consensus, and that does not give the right for the local municipalities to "bully" all of us into having these units installed anyway. It is downright insulting for these local governments to waste our taxes to "buy" into these expensive cameras and equipment without first looking at their on-hand resources and trying to resolve the issues without using shortcuts first!

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story...

This article link shows whom really benefits from these systems- the local governments (because they see this as a form of income, not a safety issue), the vendors (they make the sale!), and the insurance companies (another source of income from after-the-fact!).
I detest to say this, but you are gullible if you believe local governments' argument that they do this for our safety and benefit. If they really meant that from long ago, maybe our family would have not suffered the loss of a loved one on the road-a crass and needless way to die...

Why is it that the morally and fiscally irresponsible local governments can't get their traffic engineer's to get on the ball with improving the road systems and signaling grids that they are supposed to maintain? This would answer the suggestion already posted in this forum to fix the sequencing of green lights to ease traffic flow- the main cause that instigates speeding and red-light running in the first place. And I will not buy the argument that the technology to do this did not exist ten years ago:

-You had a police department back then, no?
-You had a traffic-engineering department back then also, no?
-You had traffic signals back then as well, no?

So what were they doing all of this time, besides drawing salary from our taxes and having long lunches and donut stops?

[Part II]

You know, the "probable" law-breaker that runs a red light already starts by speeding from his residence to the main arterial roads in his neighborhood. And as he goes farther, he keeps speeding faster and faster. Why can't this person be stopped early on before he gets worse on the road?

This is why we demand local street enforcement from the local governments, but they think it is not a priority nor important. They keep passing this task to each other (local to county, county to state), and eventually nobody does nothing about it. We know, because we have to pester these agencies every month to get local enforcement with traffic- but they ignore our requests and what they give us instead is speed traps at the times when there is less traffic flow in the streets.
And it is this kind of "historical" behavior and response from your local police departments and local governments that should plant a seed of doubt with you as to the real thrust and intent for installing these cameras. Oh- and don't forget that it will be at our tax dollar expense....

You know, our family could have easily been the kind of family that protests about our family loss, taken our issue up to conniving legislators so that they can pass a red-light camera law, take us to Tallahassee and pass the "Annette Polish" bill to discourage red-light drivers (although I think there is already a family doing that out there). But at the bottom line- what would that have accomplished- oppress the drivers of the state for something irrelevant to them, and could have been easily resolved at no-cost by the people that should be observing responsibility to our local society? The reason we elect them and pay taxes to begin with?
This starts with the local governments- not FDOT (although they should help), not Tallahassee, not the A.G. And it's left amongst ourselves to be more responsible towards how we develop our society for us, our children, and the grand-children of our loved ones by demanding that these local government own-up to be more judicious with their decisions- throwing money to the matter will still not resolve a speeder that wants to run a red light, and if he does, this technology will not stop him from killing someone at an intersection!

I hope you local officials can comprehend this from our personal experiences- like Annette's personal experience.

Happy mother's day, Annette Polish.(r.i.p.)

[Informed]

More Sentinel nonsense wrote:

I really wish the Sentinel would disclose whatever financial connection they have to the red-light debate. They refuse to give equal time to both sides of the story, and have been nothing but shameless cheerleaders for cameras since the debate began. How about running some stories about the multitude of localities that tried the cameras, and then got rid of them? How about running a story on how the localities propose to circumvent peoples' Sixth and Seventh Amendment rights by making the violation a bogus "code enforcement" issue because they KNOW they'd never get convictions otherwise? Mostly I'd like to see what kind of money the Sentinel editorial staff has riding on this issue, because it's painfully obvious someone has a special interest in it that's making the paper a public laughingstock when it comes to fair and balanced reporting and part of the reason they'll never see a dime from me for their substandard rag.

Which localities had it and gave it up? This is an interesting twist I didn't know about.

[freeman]

we don't need big brother watching us the government has to much power as it is.

[More Sentinel nonsense]

Informed wrote:

<quoted text>
Which localities had it and gave it up? This is an interesting twist I didn't know about.

Just a few: Charlotte NC, Fayetteville NC, Bolingbrook IL, Lubbock TX. Of note is the reasoning given by Lubbock for shutting their system down - they experienced a 50.5% increase in the number of accidents at the affected intersections after the cameras went in. Additionally, a number of other cities have had to refund money collected when it was proven that the yellow lights were shortened after the cameras went in - Union City, CA alone had to refund more than a million dollars in fines when it was proven in court that the city had reduced the yellow light time at one intersection from the state-mandated 4.3 seconds down to 3.0 seconds. Nashville, TN had a similar experience except that the red-light camera vendor claimed the yellow-light time in question was 3.8 seconds when in fact it was 3.0 seconds. There's just too much money in play here for the concerned parties to be trusted, and apparently the Sentinel is one of them. Think critically and do your research before accepting anything they write as fact.

[gil]

The Original Sam wrote:

<quoted text>
Not just FDOT but the cities and counties also. It's extremely frustrating when you have to stop at most lights. Why not have a hierarchy of traffic flow: The main roads have priority and are timed appropriately, followed by the secondary roads being timed as well as possible, and finally the teriary roads getting a green on the timing of the primary and secondary roads. Doing this would help reduce road frustration and likely lower the incidence of red light running from sheer frustration.

Not every intersection measures exactly the same distance from the white line to the middle of the intersection. So the amount of time to allow a person thru would vary. Then what about special events and rush hour traffic, etc? I see the police changing the timing on lights all the time. There has to be a huge loophole for ppl to fight this thing. I suppose after it's fully studied by the lawyers we'll see who win's in court.

[Informed]

More Sentinel nonsense wrote:

<quoted text>
Just a few: Charlotte NC, Fayetteville NC, Bolingbrook IL, Lubbock TX. Of note is the reasoning given by Lubbock for shutting their system down - they experienced a 50.5% increase in the number of accidents at the affected intersections after the cameras went in. Additionally, a number of other cities have had to refund money collected when it was proven that the yellow lights were shortened after the cameras went in - Union City, CA alone had to refund more than a million dollars in fines when it was proven in court that the city had reduced the yellow light time at one intersection from the state-mandated 4.3 seconds down to 3.0 seconds. Nashville, TN had a similar experience except that the red-light camera vendor claimed the yellow-light time in question was 3.8 seconds when in fact it was 3.0 seconds. There's just too much money in play here for the concerned parties to be trusted, and apparently the Sentinel is one of them. Think critically and do your research before accepting anything they write as fact.

I don't know if we can account for accidents. Were the accidents because someone else failed to stop and rear ended the driver in front of them? That isn't the fault of the light it's the fault of the driver for following too closely. That could happen now.

I suppose other cities could just keep the light yellow for the same amount of time.

[Gloom And Doom]

When will you understand that this crap will simply not hold up in court. Forget the cameras. Get the cops on the beat to catch and give tickets to red light runners. First offence, a $1000 fine. Second offence, $5000, Third offence, the simple take your car and drivers license away forever. Get some balls if you really want to deal with this issue and quit pussyfooting around with these cameras.

[hmmmm]

great idea. the legal opinion is already cast that they cannot do it, other cities have tried, been sued, and lost, and the slantinel endorses it. the kiss of death x 3!

[Lamar]

Informed wrote:

<quoted text>
I don't know if we can account for accidents. Were the accidents because someone else failed to stop and rear ended the driver in front of them? That isn't the fault of the light it's the fault of the driver for following too closely. That could happen now.
I suppose other cities could just keep the light yellow for the same amount of time.

Regardless of fault, it isn't good to set up a system that causes people to jam down hard on the breaks all the time. More importantly, the person who jams on their breaks to stop gets injured even though it is the person behind them at fault.

Instead of laying blame, city officials should re-work the timing of the lights and the design of traffic patterns. Plus, they should have police enforce red lights more often. Unfortunately, they won't do this because it costs money, whereas red light cameras make a profit and give the impression that they care about safety. That's my two cents.

[Joe]

Well, this article was based upon an opinion of the Sentinel and since there was no facts stated, it should be totally disregarded.

My argument against this is that installing cameras at intersections increases the electric consumption and pollutes the ozone even more. Wow, I can apply to the Sentinel for a job now:o)