red-light camera - mitigating circumstances?
Discussion
Just been flashed by a red-light camera on the A34 in Manchester - has anyone been able to argue it was too wet to stop in time?
There was no queue and I was doing the speed limit (40mph) - it was wet enough for someone to have had an accident at the roundabout half a mile before and I wasn't sure I could stop. Are road conditions ever taken into account?
There was no queue and I was doing the speed limit (40mph) - it was wet enough for someone to have had an accident at the roundabout half a mile before and I wasn't sure I could stop. Are road conditions ever taken into account?
Matt220 said:
Just been flashed by a red-light camera on the A34 in Manchester - has anyone been able to argue it was too wet to stop in time?
There was no queue and I was doing the speed limit (40mph) - it was wet enough for someone to have had an accident at the roundabout half a mile before and I wasn't sure I could stop. Are road conditions ever taken into account?
To be frank no.There was no queue and I was doing the speed limit (40mph) - it was wet enough for someone to have had an accident at the roundabout half a mile before and I wasn't sure I could stop. Are road conditions ever taken into account?
You're approaching a green traffic light & you know for certain it is going to change to yellow & then red. You should be anticipating this, anything else is driving without due care and attention. What would happen if you needed to stop for another reason?
Don't wish to be harsh or I told you so.
Sheriff JWPepper said:
Matt220 said:
Just been flashed by a red-light camera on the A34 in Manchester - has anyone been able to argue it was too wet to stop in time?
There was no queue and I was doing the speed limit (40mph) - it was wet enough for someone to have had an accident at the roundabout half a mile before and I wasn't sure I could stop. Are road conditions ever taken into account?
To be frank no.There was no queue and I was doing the speed limit (40mph) - it was wet enough for someone to have had an accident at the roundabout half a mile before and I wasn't sure I could stop. Are road conditions ever taken into account?
You're approaching a green traffic light & you know for certain it is going to change to yellow & then red. You should be anticipating this, anything else is driving without due care and attention. What would happen if you needed to stop for another reason?
Don't wish to be harsh or I told you so.
I believe in this situation, if you are going there to defend yourself, you will explain that the speed you were travelling did not give you the chance to stop in the conditions.
The CPS brief will say that it is the drivers responsibility to control their own speed to the conditions so that they can safely negotiate bends, junctions and other road obstacles.
There is no doubt in this case from what you have said that that you have failed to do so. The magistrates will no doubt agree. Running a red light is an 'absolute offence'. That is if you have done it, you are guilty - any mitigating circumstances are there to make an effect to your punishment rather than whether you are guilty or not.
I have some sympathy in that with all the focus on speed and speeding it does seem that as you were driving at the speed limit you were 'safe'. I believe that this to be frank is an outcome of the currect war on speed.
I think you only have one hope to argue and win this case. Although it is your personal responsibility to change your speed to the conditions, if you can show that the particular set of lights does not allow drivers to stop in time in the dry then you have a case.
If you use a video camera to video the light change you can accurately assess through freeze-framing and the frames passing exactly the time from amber to red. What you need then is an 'official' figure of stopping distances. I believe the Highway Code would be very good for proving your case as the figures are very generous by the standard of todays cars. If it is the case that the timing of the lights would not allow a driver to stop in time, then you have a strong case as the problem here would be an erroneous setting of the lights.
If it doesnt, you would be best off accepting the fine. An interesting case though if you want to follow it through though, and for the sake of 15 minutes of your time, I would be tempted to record the lights change and count the frames!
JustinP1 said:
Sheriff JWPepper said:
Matt220 said:
Just been flashed by a red-light camera on the A34 in Manchester - has anyone been able to argue it was too wet to stop in time?
There was no queue and I was doing the speed limit (40mph) - it was wet enough for someone to have had an accident at the roundabout half a mile before and I wasn't sure I could stop. Are road conditions ever taken into account?
To be frank no.There was no queue and I was doing the speed limit (40mph) - it was wet enough for someone to have had an accident at the roundabout half a mile before and I wasn't sure I could stop. Are road conditions ever taken into account?
You're approaching a green traffic light & you know for certain it is going to change to yellow & then red. You should be anticipating this, anything else is driving without due care and attention. What would happen if you needed to stop for another reason?
Don't wish to be harsh or I told you so.
I believe in this situation, if you are going there to defend yourself, you will explain that the speed you were travelling did not give you the chance to stop in the conditions.
The CPS brief will say that it is the drivers responsibility to control their own speed to the conditions so that they can safely negotiate bends, junctions and other road obstacles.
There is no doubt in this case from what you have said that that you have failed to do so. The magistrates will no doubt agree. Running a red light is an 'absolute offence'. That is if you have done it, you are guilty - any mitigating circumstances are there to make an effect to your punishment rather than whether you are guilty or not.
I have some sympathy in that with all the focus on speed and speeding it does seem that as you were driving at the speed limit you were 'safe'. I believe that this to be frank is an outcome of the currect war on speed.
I think you only have one hope to argue and win this case. Although it is your personal responsibility to change your speed to the conditions, if you can show that the particular set of lights does not allow drivers to stop in time in the dry then you have a case.
If you use a video camera to video the light change you can accurately assess through freeze-framing and the frames passing exactly the time from amber to red. What you need then is an 'official' figure of stopping distances. I believe the Highway Code would be very good for proving your case as the figures are very generous by the standard of todays cars. If it is the case that the timing of the lights would not allow a driver to stop in time, then you have a strong case as the problem here would be an erroneous setting of the lights.
If it doesnt, you would be best off accepting the fine. An interesting case though if you want to follow it through though, and for the sake of 15 minutes of your time, I would be tempted to record the lights change and count the frames!
The standard "starting" red&amber is always 2 seconds.
It is the overlap of these periods, or the length of the "all red" period between them, that dictates the overall "intergreen" eg between the main road green going off, and the side road green coming on. That time, the intergreen, is variable to account for the size of the junction, the type and speed of traffic, etc. The length of the intergreen is not relevant to a red light offence (it might be relevant to the consequences, but not to the actual offence)
The lengths of the amber periods are not variable.
If the signal amber is 3 seconds, then it's right. If it's shorter, then (and only then) might you have a case, otherwise, I think that a court would find, as said by others before, that if you could not safely stop in time because the road was too wet, then you should have been going slower as you approached the signals.
tvrgit said:
All very good except that traffic signals have a standard 3 seconds "leaving amber" ie the change from green to red. That is not related to speed or stopping distance or anything else.
Not that I know of they don't.Do you have any evidence of this? AFAIK they're all slightly different, and I don't for one moment believe all lights take 3 seconds to go green to red.
There was a recent article on here saying that you could not reasonably stop at 45mph for a light changing to amber from green.
FWIW, the HC states that the total stopping distance at 40 mph is 120 feet, and that in the wet the stopping distance is "at least" twice as far - 240 ft.
Their numbers may be obsolete in the technical sense, but they're all you could rely on with a court.
At 40 mph, in three seconds you travel 176 feet.
In effect that suggests that, in a 40 limit in the wet, you should be doing no more than 30 as you approach a set of lights. That way you could always stop during the yellow phase, assuming that you reacted immediately.
However, there is often a period between the light's going red and the camera trigger threshold. In some British jurisdictions this is two seconds.
During those two (for example) seconds, you will have travelled another 88 feet (at 40). Now you would have travelled 264 feet since the light turned yellow, well within the stopping distance.
Their numbers may be obsolete in the technical sense, but they're all you could rely on with a court.
At 40 mph, in three seconds you travel 176 feet.
In effect that suggests that, in a 40 limit in the wet, you should be doing no more than 30 as you approach a set of lights. That way you could always stop during the yellow phase, assuming that you reacted immediately.
However, there is often a period between the light's going red and the camera trigger threshold. In some British jurisdictions this is two seconds.
During those two (for example) seconds, you will have travelled another 88 feet (at 40). Now you would have travelled 264 feet since the light turned yellow, well within the stopping distance.
Pretty certain the delay between turning red and the flash was less than 2 seconds. With hindsight, I don't think there's any doubt that I could have stopped but at the time (influenced by having just seen a Pug 206 in a hedge) I thought I could cross on amber and avoid triggering an unseemly ABS stop.
w1how - a bit further south at the Gatley junction.
w1how - a bit further south at the Gatley junction.
tigger1 said:
Not that I know of they don't.
There is a standard timing, which is somewhere in the region of three seconds. I don't think the standard is enshrined in law (but it might be, for all I know), but it does seem to be universal. There are lots of reasons why it might feel subjectively longer or shorter than three seconds.GreenV8S said:
tigger1 said:
Not that I know of they don't.
There is a standard timing, which is somewhere in the region of three seconds. I don't think the standard is enshrined in law (but it might be, for all I know), but it does seem to be universal. There are lots of reasons why it might feel subjectively longer or shorter than three seconds. . I believe that the 'time on Amber' is legally 3 seconds...The speed limit at that point is 50 or 60mph Dual Carriageway, from memory.
Not fair to have a speed camera at that point anyway, due to the speed limit
.tigger1 said:
tvrgit said:
All very good except that traffic signals have a standard 3 seconds "leaving amber" ie the change from green to red. That is not related to speed or stopping distance or anything else.
Not that I know of they don't.Do you have any evidence of this? AFAIK they're all slightly different, and I don't for one moment believe all lights take 3 seconds to go green to red.
There was a recent article on here saying that you could not reasonably stop at 45mph for a light changing to amber from green.
The 3 seconds leaving amber is a mandatory requirement set out by Parliament in a Statutory Instrument - I can't remember its number, I read it 27 years ago when I earned my living designing traffic signals, and I was convinced, and I know it's never been changed or rescinded. That means that individual highway authorities do not have discretion to change that value. Whether you believe it for a moment, or not, that is the law.
If anyone is aware of signals with a properly timed leaving amber of less than 3 seconds (not a subjective "oh that was short!" as you attempt to stop) then it should be reported as a fault to the local highway authority.
It's a standard requirement of traffic signals - and has been for more years than matters now - at least since the 1950's (the old type 54 and type 25 controllers had 3 seconds as an unalterable fixed standard) Modern signals controllers are designed to be sellable internationally so are variable, and have an enormous 40-page specification booklet that you have to fill in with all the requirements for programming all the timings and detectors etc in the processor, but the UK standard requirement for a leaving amber is still 3 seconds.
Finally, I agree that 3 seconds isn't enough to stop from 45 mph. That is taken into account by the whole length of the "intergreen" as I explained in my earlier post - not in the length of the leaving amber. It might also interest you to know that signals where approach speeds are that high should be classed as "high-speed" signals and should have special speed detection equipment, which basically does 2 things:
1. If the signals are on green, but just about to change, but at the last second detect somebody "motoring along" shall we say, the green period is extended slightly so that they won't have to stop in a hurry.
2. If the signals have just changed from green (ie in the first second or two of leaving amber) and they detect detect somebody "motoring along", they cannot extend the leaving amber but they will extend the following all-red before other traffic gets a red/amber in preparation to go - in other words they allow a longer clearance time in case that driver couldn't stop from the speed he was doing.
Not all 40-ish mph signals do have speed detection or speed discrimination gear, but if they do, and are therefore designed to ensure that drivers who find it difficult to stop can get through safely, it would be a bit unfair, to say the least, to prosecute them with a red light camera because they do.
tvrgit said:
tigger1 said:
tvrgit said:
All very good except that traffic signals have a standard 3 seconds "leaving amber" ie the change from green to red. That is not related to speed or stopping distance or anything else.
Not that I know of they don't.Do you have any evidence of this? AFAIK they're all slightly different, and I don't for one moment believe all lights take 3 seconds to go green to red.
There was a recent article on here saying that you could not reasonably stop at 45mph for a light changing to amber from green.
The 3 seconds leaving amber is a mandatory requirement set out by Parliament in a Statutory Instrument - I can't remember its number, I read it 27 years ago when I earned my living designing traffic signals, and I was convinced, and I know it's never been changed or rescinded. That means that individual highway authorities do not have discretion to change that value. Whether you believe it for a moment, or not, that is the law.
If anyone is aware of signals with a properly timed leaving amber of less than 3 seconds (not a subjective "oh that was short!" as you attempt to stop) then it should be reported as a fault to the local highway authority.
It's a standard requirement of traffic signals - and has been for more years than matters now - at least since the 1950's (the old type 54 and type 25 controllers had 3 seconds as an unalterable fixed standard) Modern signals controllers are designed to be sellable internationally so are variable, and have an enormous 40-page specification booklet that you have to fill in with all the requirements for programming all the timings and detectors etc in the processor, but the UK standard requirement for a leaving amber is still 3 seconds.
Finally, I agree that 3 seconds isn't enough to stop from 45 mph. That is taken into account by the whole length of the "intergreen" as I explained in my earlier post - not in the length of the leaving amber. It might also interest you to know that signals where approach speeds are that high should be classed as "high-speed" signals and should have special speed detection equipment, which basically does 2 things:
1. If the signals are on green, but just about to change, but at the last second detect somebody "motoring along" shall we say, the green period is extended slightly so that they won't have to stop in a hurry.
2. If the signals have just changed from green (ie in the first second or two of leaving amber) and they detect detect somebody "motoring along", they cannot extend the leaving amber but they will extend the following all-red before other traffic gets a red/amber in preparation to go - in other words they allow a longer clearance time in case that driver couldn't stop from the speed he was doing.
Not all 40-ish mph signals do have speed detection or speed discrimination gear, but if they do, and are therefore designed to ensure that drivers who find it difficult to stop can get through safely, it would be a bit unfair, to say the least, to prosecute them with a red light camera because they do.
It's all academic now but on our patch we had a set of lights which definitely did not meet the standards but do now.
The approach was NSL and thus 60/70. I say 60 slash 70 because they were lights on a DC from one direction and maybe SC/DC from the other direction depending upon whether you considered the permanent construction between opposing carriageways as a central reserve or merely a traffic island. (sorry for that bit of detail :anorak: )
Anyway the leaving amber phase was 2.4 seconds. and there was no speed detection/ discrimination gear, there were a lot of rear end shunts I would argue influenced by the presence of a RLC with a hair trigger. When complaints built up it turned out that the camera was experimental!!!!!!!!!!
RLC camera now removed and all the equipemnt installed to make the lights detect approaching traffic which might be embarrassed by a change but even so. I wonder ho many people had damaged vehicles because someone decided to play experiments with live traffic!
Turning to the question of stopping times I recall that if you assume 0.4 second reaction time, anything over 50mph will take longer than 3 seconds to stop in a 0.9g stop, and at 0.5g even at 30 mph will take more than 3 seconds.
I'd argue using RLCs on any light without the detection gear you mention is a bit naughty depending upon the time between the red and RLC triggering.
Edited by Flat in Fifth on Monday 16th July 11:19
I drove over a red light and got flashed a couple of years ago ... I got a NIP in the post, which suprised me somewhat. I'd moved out of the way to allow 2 bloody fire engines with the sirens on to go through.... They were clearly in the picture !
I wrote them a nice letter asking whether they were employing people with the name Blunkett
I got a reply 5 months later saying that they would not be proceeding ... t055ers !
I wrote them a nice letter asking whether they were employing people with the name Blunkett
I got a reply 5 months later saying that they would not be proceeding ... t055ers !
tvrgit said:
tigger1 said:
tvrgit said:
All very good except that traffic signals have a standard 3 seconds "leaving amber" ie the change from green to red. That is not related to speed or stopping distance or anything else.
Not that I know of they don't.Do you have any evidence of this? AFAIK they're all slightly different, and I don't for one moment believe all lights take 3 seconds to go green to red.
There was a recent article on here saying that you could not reasonably stop at 45mph for a light changing to amber from green.
The 3 seconds leaving amber is a mandatory requirement set out by Parliament in a Statutory Instrument - I can't remember its number, I read it 27 years ago when I earned my living designing traffic signals, and I was convinced, and I know it's never been changed or rescinded. That means that individual highway authorities do not have discretion to change that value. Whether you believe it for a moment, or not, that is the law.
If anyone is aware of signals with a properly timed leaving amber of less than 3 seconds (not a subjective "oh that was short!" as you attempt to stop) then it should be reported as a fault to the local highway authority.
It's a standard requirement of traffic signals - and has been for more years than matters now - at least since the 1950's (the old type 54 and type 25 controllers had 3 seconds as an unalterable fixed standard) Modern signals controllers are designed to be sellable internationally so are variable, and have an enormous 40-page specification booklet that you have to fill in with all the requirements for programming all the timings and detectors etc in the processor, but the UK standard requirement for a leaving amber is still 3 seconds.
Finally, I agree that 3 seconds isn't enough to stop from 45 mph. That is taken into account by the whole length of the "intergreen" as I explained in my earlier post - not in the length of the leaving amber. It might also interest you to know that signals where approach speeds are that high should be classed as "high-speed" signals and should have special speed detection equipment, which basically does 2 things:
1. If the signals are on green, but just about to change, but at the last second detect somebody "motoring along" shall we say, the green period is extended slightly so that they won't have to stop in a hurry.
2. If the signals have just changed from green (ie in the first second or two of leaving amber) and they detect detect somebody "motoring along", they cannot extend the leaving amber but they will extend the following all-red before other traffic gets a red/amber in preparation to go - in other words they allow a longer clearance time in case that driver couldn't stop from the speed he was doing.
Not all 40-ish mph signals do have speed detection or speed discrimination gear, but if they do, and are therefore designed to ensure that drivers who find it difficult to stop can get through safely, it would be a bit unfair, to say the least, to prosecute them with a red light camera because they do.
Interesting what you say about "speed-discrimincation" - being able to stay green if they detect a rapidly approaching car. This seems to suggest that when approaching a green light on NSL it might be worth just keeping it to the floor as the lights won't change...but this sounds risky!
There's two such lights near me that I pass often, one is fine (junction is very large, so I have no problem with barrelling through at 70mph on amber) - but the other always make me nervous enough to slow down.
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