The city council in Washington, Missouri no longer believes that red light cameras have a positive impact on safety. Members voted 6 to 2 on Monday to allow the automated ticketing contract with American Traffic Solutions (ATS) to expire, and Mayor Sandy Lucy agreed to draft a letter to the for-profit company making it clear that the council has no interest in ever bringing the devices back.
Councilman Tim Buddemeyer took issue with the attempt by an ATS front group to exploit the story of an accident in Arnold that took the life of ten-year-old Kayla Tremeear and goad the council into extending the contract. Buddemeyer told the story of his own cousin who was killed by a drunk driver who ran a red light.
“The bottom line: if there would have been a red light camera there, it wouldn’t have prevented the tragedy or accident,” Buddemeyer said. “But if there was an officer who would have seen him driving erratic and stopped him before he got to the intersection, she might be here as we speak. I don’t think the red light cameras save lives.”
Councilman John Rhodes pointed out that in the case of the incident that took the life of Kayla Tremeear, the driver admitted that he was fiddling with the radio and never saw the light.
“The irony here is that the worst he would have gotten is a ticket in the mail three weeks later asking him to pay the $100 fine for the red light,” Rhodes said. “That wouldn’t have eliminated the death, either… I guess the sad part of Kayla’s story was she didn’t die because her car was T-boned. She died because she was not seat belted. She was thrown from the vehicle and the car landed on top of her and crushed her. That’s a horrible way to die, but they didn’t tell you that story, you had to go investigate it and find it.”
Rhodes was not interested in making his decision based on an anecdote. In addition to the findings of the police chief presented last month, Rhodes analyzed six years’ worth of accident data and found that the primary cause of the accidents at the monitored intersections has been driver inattention. He found that only 1.8 percent of collisions — 14 out of 215 — were caused by drivers who violated a red light. National statistics in the United States and the United Kingdom agree that inattention is a primary cause of accidents.
“I can’t argue with the numbers,” American Traffic Solutions salesman Dan Reeb admitted in response to Rhodes. “I’m not going to argue that point.”
At the meeting, ATS representatives made a last minute offer to waive the contractual notice requirements to delay the vote. They also offered to hold educational presentations to the council, but it was not interested. Several members of the public, including former Councilman Guy Midkiff, addressed the council to express opposition to automated ticketing. After the final vote was taken, the audience burst into applause.
[Courtesy:Thenewspaper.com]
One small battle won in a long war. Very encouraging though.
In our cultural backwater burg of less than 200,000, largest city in this quadrant of Missouri, the red-light camera critters were deactivated a few months ago after a legal appeal to the courts by a tickets cop led to a judge ordering the things turned off.
Ample speeding and negligent/inattentive driving hereabouts but not as disgustingly bad as in other sections of the USA.
I saw worse driving, on average, in Nebraska and Iowa when I lived in that neck o’ the woods with Iowa especially bad for some unknown reason(s).
For it’s large population I felt California was not nearly as bad for rotten driving as other portions of the USA.
On the whole, the absolutelest baddest scariest lousiest driving I ever saw was in the New Orleans area and Florida made do a lot of cringing.
Houston was no picnic, either.
Rush rush rush just so a driver can get to the red stop light sooner and have to apply more force to than brakes that what would otherwise be required to stop.
So MUCH illogic I observe around me constantly by a majority of drives.
NOT all, just so very many. One of many reasons I do not hold the average human herd member in high esteem.
Make that low esteem for situational awareness and applying logic to actions and inaction when piloting a conveyance across the landscape…. especially so in towns, cities, etc. where traffic flow controls (stop lights etc) hold sway.
Motor safely, lads and ladettes.
Safe driving is as much attitude as it is subjective perceived driving ability and likely more so but I am being generous.
The “big city” near me here in East TN is overrun with these things. I’ve averaged about one ticket a year from them, although I think I am a very safe driver, I swear they must cut the yellow time down to 1 second or something.
You know, LectroByte, it wouldn’t take too much effort to actually time some of those yellow lights. Cutting their length tends to go along with the red-light camera plague.
<i>” He found that only 1.8 percent of collisions — 14 out of 215 — were caused by drivers who violated a red light.”</i>
That’s actually 6.5%-maybe ‘American Traffic Solutions salesman Dan Reeb’ should have ‘argued with the numbers’.
<i>Not in any way meant to support traffic cameras, which I despise.</i>
Short three-second yellows do not allow drivers time and distance to stop without emergency-level panic breaking unless well back from the light and do not allow enough time to make it through the intersection. Drivers must choose between two losing choices: Too short to stop and too short to get through the intersection.
Drivers who beat a red at the Stop Line by one-tenth of a second are free to legally continue against the lights into and through the intersection and crosswalks where the green and “Walk” signals have been illuminated for possibly 3 or 4 seconds. These “Legal Red Light Runners” (LRLRs) —get used to the term—cause an increase in crashes, deaths, injuries, property damage, road rage, disrespect for the signal lights and other traffic control devices, police officers, and more.
LRLRs are created by short yellows.
A skilled driver or bicyclist carefully timing the light to enter the intersection on green at a three-second-yellow intersection is put in increased danger by short yellow light times. There is nothing else to blame this elevated risk on.
The Gold Standard for intersection safety appears to be a minimum 4.5 second yellow followed by a minimum 2.5 second “All Red” (also called “Red Clearance”) to better ensure all traffic has stopped entering the intersection and the traffic lanes and crosswalks have cleared. The ITE appears ready to elevate this from a suggested practice to a recommended practice.
They can’t do it fast enough for me. If you agree or disagree, comment here: http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov
More directly:
Go to: http://www.regulations.gov/#!home
Click on “Submit a comment”.
Enter: FHWA-2010-0159 in the “Enter Keyword or ID” Field
Click “Search”.
You have 2000 characters to tell the Federal Highway Administration your thoughts on cities shorting the green lights to feed hapless drivers into shortened yellow lights (3 seconds is a favorite).
The comment period ends on Friday, January 14th.
Three-second yellows kill. Eradicate them and the carnage plunges in the intersections and the traffic cameras disappear.
Four-point-five to stay alive. Spread the word.
Short yellows and not having an all-red time is a big hazard. i have had a friend that has been in an accident on his motorcycles due to a short yellow. The intersection had just received a shortened yellow time. Luckily he is OK.