Monday 27th March 2006

Question marks over red-light cameras

Do they add safety? Police figures unreliable

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Do red light cameras work?

Do traffic light cameras reduce accidents? One study suggests that they might increase them.

In Winnipeg, Canada, an evaluation of the effects of the installation of newly installed systems at 12 intersections showed that accidents at those locations increased by 58 per cent. They weren't minor ones either, with injuries going up by 64 per cent and claims for property damage up between 60 and 113 per cent. This was against a backdrop of accidents increasing by seven per cent in the rest of the city.

The city auditor retrieved these statistics from Manitoba Public Insurance, the local insurance monitor, after figures from the police showed that intersection accidents had fallen following the cameras' introduction. The auditor smelt a rat after cross-checking the overall accident statistics and found that there had been no general decrease.

The question of course is why the police delivered figures that didn't tally, and whether the cameras will lead to safer roads in Winnipeg and elsewhere.

• More on this story

[scottpm]

We already know the majority of fixed camera sites are not there primarily for safety, but as a revenue generator...plain and simple. These insurance stats only back up this notion! :ranting

[huge]

At least its good to know tha Authorities/Police forces in other countries "interpret" the figures for their own purposes...its not just ours !

[mk1fan]

Given that only % were given you have to make some assumptions here. 1. the junction must have had a high accident rate to warrant installing cameras. 2. that a 60% increase in the number of accidents means that the increase cannot be explained away by a couple of 'freak' Blues Brothers style accidents.

So dispite the cameras the junction has become more dangerous. Maybe some re-engineering of the junction would be a more sensible approach?

>> Edited by mk1fan on Monday 27th March 12:29

[eein]

It is annoying when you see people take a suspiciously late light and it is obvious to anyone that doing so is very dangerous. However, I can easily believe that the cameras do not help reduce this as the cameras will often be set to no go off for the first second or two as this would be too grey an area to enforce.

I am not surprised that red light cameras would increase accidents. All too often I have been approaching a set of lights, then the lights change at that critical fraction of time when you change from "I'll stop if they change" to "I'm committed and not backing out". When I've seen a red light camera, I'll tend to err on the side of planting the break and comming to a somewhat abrupt stop and in many cases the person behind (who is too close, as is the norm) has come very close to bumping me. I've never actually been hit, but a few times I've lifted off the break to roll an extra meter or two to make sure.

Of course, my example is maybe just an argument against making the cameras 'high visibility'.

[135sport]

The report does not say what type of accident has increased.

It could be that all those people who would normally run the light, have now spotted the camera and decided to stop......but the guy behind did not.

[Tazfan]

Winnipeg is my home town.

[Peter Ward]

135sport said:

The report does not say what type of accident has increased. It could be that all those people who would normally run the light, have now spotted the camera and decided to stop......but the guy behind did not.

Very true, but the idea behind cameras is that they reduce accidents, full stop. If the argument for red light cameras is that motorists then need further education so as not to drive too close to the car in front, that's essentially an argument for better driver training overall, which is the nub of the "training vs. speed limits" debate that's raged for years.

[NElmslie]

I have been saying for years now that the police jobsworth factor is the driving force behind cameras. It has been increasingly proved that cameras don't reduce overall accident rates and, despite all the bull they come out with, they know this. They get indignant when the revenue question is raised because they really are not in it for the money.The money is just a bonus to them. What it is all about is the fact that,before cameras, every copper used to see loads of cars speeding and running lights every day. They would have nicked them all if it was possible but for obvious reasons they couldn't. Cameras don't get every speeder but a lot more get caught now than before and that is what they love about them. It's the jobsworth "the law is the law" mentality and has nothing to do with safety or revenue.

[sa_20v]

They're a stupid idea in my opinion, I have to either:

1. Drive slowly up to traffic lights, winding up all those around me who invariably drive like idiots to get past
2. Or slam the anchors on at the very sight of an amber bulb

It's just another move to make our roads idiot proof (and potentially more dangerous). I would like to be able to use my own judgement as to whether running an amber light was safer than stopping abrumptly only for a tailgater to munch on my rear end!!

[Parrot of Doom]

One thing that really makes my p1ss boil is people who run red lights against you while you're waiting to turn right. You end up sat in the middle of the junction having to apologise to traffic now coming from your left/right, all because some retard decided that he/she was too important to wait for 2 minutes for the lights to change to green.

I can see them do it every time, and especially on junctions where I know how the lights change, I find myself driving across their path anyway (if possible and safe) just to make what they're doing more obvious, and make them appear more stupid for doing so.

[mybrainhurts]

mk1fan said:

Maybe some re-engineering of the junction would be a more sensible approach?

If junction "re-engineering" near me is typical of current thinking, I have little faith in its worth.....

[ubergreg]

I still think there's a place for red light cameras. I’d like to know if there were other factors to the increase in accidents at those trial locations; Canadian and American drivers, on the average, are largely inattentive and undisciplined compared to here (and I know, because I grew up driving there). So a for all we know, that could be a spike in accident rate due to serial red-light runners of varying conscience/attention/skill levels learning to adapt to the little grey box by the side of the road.

Red light runners (not amber, but red) are selfish and take unacceptable risks. The cameras don’t flash drivers for amber, but red. Anyone who is done by one of these is (in my opinion anyway) not paying proper attention to the upcoming junction, or driving inappropriately for the conditions.

Speed cameras and the ‘Appropriate speed for the conditions’ issue is one thing, but when is it appropriate and responsible to drive through a junction after the lights have turned red?

[r988]

Tazfan said:

Winnipeg is my home town.

Was that all you were planning to contribute? Surely you must have an opinion if it's your hometown?

[sgt^roc]

scottpm said:

We already know the majority of fixed camera sites are not there primarily for safety, but as a revenue generator...plain and simple. These insurance stats only back up this notion! :ranting

Labour government = tax = spend =more cameras = more money = more spending that's all I got to say, Research = solution = lives saved just does not count here...

[bga]

ubergreg said:

I still think there's a place for red light cameras. I’d like to know if there were other factors to the increase in accidents at those trial locations; Canadian and American drivers, on the average, are largely inattentive and undisciplined compared to here (and I know, because I grew up driving there). So a for all we know, that could be a spike in accident rate due to serial red-light runners of varying conscience/attention/skill levels learning to adapt to the little grey box by the side of the road. Red light runners (not amber, but red) are selfish and take unacceptable risks. The cameras don’t flash drivers for amber, but red. Anyone who is done by one of these is (in my opinion anyway) not paying proper attention to the upcoming junction, or driving inappropriately for the conditions. Speed cameras and the ‘Appropriate speed for the conditions’ issue is one thing, but when is it appropriate and responsible to drive through a junction after the lights have turned red?

I agree, RLC's are the only cameras that I feel contribute to my safety when I'm driving in my local area. I've had far more instances of nearly being sideswiped by someone running a red light than I have had someone almost go into the back of me.

[rewc]

Red light cameras are placed where there is a perceived or real problem of drivers going through the light after its turned red. There are propably many reasons for this, but I suspect that in only a few instances out of the many that it is deliberate. I work for a company which is one of the main suppliers of traffic lights in the UK and suspect that the amber time has been set as short as possible.
When I lived in Germany many years ago they had a system where there were advanced lights about 300m prior to the main lights. If a green was showing you knew that if you travelled at the speed limit that the lights would be green when you reached them. If they flashed amber you knew they would be on red.

[xxplod]

NElmslie - I would be grateful if you did not describe the SCPs as 'Police.' They are rarely sworn officers. Most van operators are civilians as are all the admin staff. This is of course cheaper and adds to the revenue raised, which is their sole purpose for being. I believe it is an utter disgrace that SCPs are in partnership with the Police as it goes against a fundamental principle of Policing - it gives a link to the Police with the treasury and that is plain wrong.

However, on the subject of cameras for red lights - I'm all for them. If you can't stop at a red light you shouldn't be driving. Like the tw@t this morning in a Vauxhall Meriva who accelerated through one on the A31 at 60 mph, swerving to avoid the car approaching from his nearside.

Replace all the speed ones with traffic light ones and then we would start to penalise the crap drivers.

[Polarbert]

I hate red light cameras, they just seem completely pointless. And I have heard horror stories about people moving across them to get out of the way of emergency service vehicles, getting flashed, and still being charged for going through a red light!


Anybody had this happen to them?

[twister]

ubergreg said:

when is it appropriate and responsible to drive through a junction after the lights have turned red?

When you've been sat at the lights for significantly longer than you *know* the normal cycle lasts, you can see that none of the lights controlling the other approaches to the junction have changed in all the time you've been sat there, and you eventually come to the conclusion that the little elves in the control box have gone to sleep. Do you continue to sit there patiently waiting for a green light that might never come, do you do a u-turn and find some other route that bypasses the faulty lights, or do you treat them as a give way and proceed with caution?

Or

When you've got an emergency services vehicle barreling towards you, blues and twos going full blast, and you can see quite clearly that if you don't pull forward across the stop line then the ESV isn't going to get anywhere for a while?

Or

If you're sitting at the lights, you notice someone in your rear view showing absolutely no sign of wanting to/being able to slow down, and you consider that pulling forwards to open up a gap and possibly allowing you to also move out of their path is preferable to remaining put and hoping that they find their brakes before they end up having an intimate encounter with your boot lid?



Edited to add:

Just a thought - in all three scenarios above, the red light would only need to be run at a low speed, whereas the hardcore red-light-runners (who we DO want to deter) tend to barrel through the lights without slowing down, so what if the RLCs were set off only when someone went over the stop line *and* were doing more than, say, 50% of the limit for that stretch of road? Not that I particularly like the idea of introducing yet more speed-related enforcement, but it might at least be an improvement on having RLCs trip if you so much as touch the second sensor regardless of your speed across the line...

>> Edited by twister on Monday 27th March 20:10

[vipers]

eein said:

It is annoying when you see people take a suspiciously late light and it is obvious to anyone that doing so is very dangerous. However, I can easily believe that the cameras do not help reduce this as the cameras will often be set to no go off for the first second or two as this would be too grey an area to enforce. I am not surprised that red light cameras would increase accidents. All too often I have been approaching a set of lights, then the lights change at that critical fraction of time when you change from "I'll stop if they change" to "I'm committed and not backing out". When I've seen a red light camera, I'll tend to err on the side of planting the break and comming to a somewhat abrupt stop and in many cases the person behind (who is too close, as is the norm) has come very close to bumping me. I've never actually been hit, but a few times I've lifted off the break to roll an extra meter or two to make sure. Of course, my example is maybe just an argument against making the cameras 'high visibility'.

I do recall in Dubai, at a set of lights, there is a seed bump in the road, s'pose its so you slow down anyway, and if the light should change, you are going sufficiently slow enough to stop?

Mores the pity there arnt any cameras at pedestrian lights, to clock the buggers who insist on walking in front of your car even when their lights are RED and your are GREEN.................