| Not GP, but I've seen multiple credible news stories on this. The problem isn't the red-light camera itself, it is that whoever installs/manages them also reduces the time of the yellow-light warning, so the red light comes on significantly sooner. The normal yellow light timing is a properly studied and engineered interval based on traffic and speed to give drivers sufficient warning to see, decide, and go or slow-stop in a safe and predictable fashion. When the red-light-camera installers/managers decide to cut that time to increase infractions and increase revenue, they create situations where drivers think they are going to make it to the intersection in good time, but are surprised by the sooner-changing red light, so emergency-brake before the line. This causes accidents, including accidents where the car is pushed into the intersection and causes a rear-end then T-bone. This invalid yellow-red light timing was revealed in some lawsuits about it. I think the right solution is to maintain properly engineered timing, install cameras that also trigger a full video from multiple angles, and manually evaluate each positive and ticket only the egregious ones and have records of the violators who caused accidents. But since the easy money is evidently too much of a temptation to fck with people, ban them all. |