The other day we relayed a report from CBS Baltimore about the town of Westminster’s having disconnected most of its traffic cameras on the ground that they were causing more accidents than they were preventing. However, a Baltimore Sun report contradicts that assertion and quotes town officials saying the cameras had reduced speeding and accidents; it also contradicts assertions in the earlier article on the cameras’ cost.
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I tried to write a blog post – never quite got to it – on this and noticed the same thing. Every article had a differing spin. But the one take away message I seemed to come away with is that it seems to work at some intersections and not others. If this is true, getting a handle on these factors would really be key. But it is also important to remember that it is impossible to calculate the overall deterrent effect by looking just at individual intersections.
I don’t have the answers.
Reminds me of the first time I ever noticed a traffic cam peering down at me from next to a just-turned-yellow light. I stood on the brakes hard, and nearly got rear-ended.
There are traffic engineers who have devoted their entire working lives trying to discover the of traffic flow, but in this case the evidence is obvious in a reading of the face saving news release from the fine folks of Westminister. The bottom line is the bottom line, it’s all about the money. The intersections where the cameras were pulled weren’t paying for themselves. One $75 ticket a day from a camera that was costing over $125 a day. No new math needed here. That amount is very low, most of the fines I have seen are in the $300 to $400 range, which a couple of federal judges from these parts described in their ruling to be a “minor inconvenience.” And the description of the accidents at these two intersections as “generally aren’t considered to be related to red light runners.” What, you can’t go over to the computer and pull up the real stats, a little before and after perhaps. Bad form there, Officer Barbrady.
From their numbers there are approximately 6.37 tickets a day for all three intersections and it takes an officer three hours to verify them. That’a tad over 28 minutes per photo. In most jurisdictions they get 30 seconds to make a decision.
Which brings me back to the decidedly aberrant behavior of the two companies most often involved. Big Note: I have no idea what company is involved in Westminister red light cameras, but the two 800 lb gorillas are Redflex and ATC and their conniving ways are well documented. If anyone is in need of further reading, type “red light cameras” in the search box at the top of this page, this is not a new subject at OL. You may even find that in the beginning I was for the cameras a position that WO questioned, and as always he was right.
“As always.” I like that.
Set the yellow intervals for the ACTUAL 85th percentile approach speeds of free flowing traffic under good conditions (the safest method) and the “red light running problem” will virtually disappear. So will the red light camera cash register revenue, so cities are very reluctant to increase safety but lose the predatory camera revenue.
James C. Walker, National Motorists Association, Ann Arbor, MI