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by binarymax 1295 days ago
In my town, the previous mayor had all the red light cameras removed, as it was considered a regressive tax. But now, the number of people that blaze through just-changed red lights is out of control. So the fix? The delay between red to green was increased. Some intersections now have a 5 to 10 second overlap of reds to allow for all the maniacs to speed through the just-changed light.
3 comments

The fix which increases safety is to replace traffic lights with traffic circles. Speeds are lower and more consistent.
The yellow lights might be too short. Cameras are notorious for that because the incentives are wrong; both the vendor and the city want revenue from issuing fines.
Cameras are notorious for being accused of being used for revenue but that’s mostly drivers not wanting to accept responsibility for their actions. The few cases where this has actually been backed by data (e.g. San Diego in the 90s had intersections below the legal minimum) are dwarfed by the number of times where it’s just people’s subjective assessments not matching objective data.
They could have introduced a three strike system to catch repeat offenders or you know, the points system in Germany.