Send me a ticket claiming I ran a red light by .4 seconds. I am not paying your shit for your crappy red light camera. Go fuck yourself, and Floriduh traffic officers better be ready to deal with a TLDR evidence dump. Bring it the fuck on, you have no idea of what you are in for. the least foriduh could do is employ an actual cop to sit at red lights instead of contracting out for bullshit tickets in Ohio. Of all the fucking shitholes to send your money to. I am not sending shit to cincinatty. Who do you think you are WKRP?
interesting! I may be getting a ticket in the mail from Tennessee from my vacation. I didn't run a red light, but when I pulled up to the intersection (stopping at a red light of course) the road I intersected was at an angle, not 90 degrees to the road I was on. Thus my left front bumper may have been slightly "over the line" when I stopped, not realizing the road was at such a steep angle. I think I saw a camera flash, but was that camera for my car or somewhere else at the intersection? My luck I would have to go back to Tennessee to fight the ticket, but if the ticket even hints at "running a red light" you bet your ass I'll fight that because that is not at all what happened. BTW as for running a red light by .4 seconds I think it's funny that when I go through a yellow light by the skin of my teeth (too late to stop driving 45 MPH because I might get rear-ended if I try to) I look in my rear-view mirror and there is a car or two right behind me also running it! I GUARANTEE that those cars were running the red if I barely made it through.
I get that their cameras might not carry much weight for speeding, but running a red light? That might be a different situation.
There is a lot of reasons why traffic lights end up being wrong. I got caught by one years back in the middle of the night and the video footage shows me just cruising through while the light was red for a long time. So I paid it without arguing. I never even knew, and started paying a lot more attention to the lights while I cruise and relax when there is no one on Floriduh roads. But .4 seconds is ridiculous when you consider no living officer could make such a distinction, which also means a human driver cannot possibly make such a distinction. Weird fact I did find out. The minimal duration time of the amber lights, and traffic cameras actually cause an increase in accident rates and camera violations. Some of the research said that increasing yellow times for less than a second lowers accidents, and also lowers these violations because people actually stop more by the duration end than trying to rush through it. So really short amber times it makes the roads more dangerous while increasing violation money. I can agree with cameras fining blatantly running a red light, but .4 seconds is just bullshit. Not to mention there is no proof I was driving, and I might not even know after a month or so who was driving if I let others drive. The state should have the burden of proving I was driving, which is covered when a police officer pulls me over right afterwards, or if the camera could identify my face, which is not possible from a video that is above and behind and never gets a view of a driver's face. You have to fight these things when they are wrong to cost the state money and cause them to shut down their contracts with cameras.
I don't think the cameras spot you for over the line. Plus, I am pretty sure the camera flashes even if there is no one running the light. I can see a bright flash every time the light changes from a pole near an intersection with a camera stop. The cameras also record video which they send to you with the ticket. The real problem is the process. If I get a ticket from an officer it is in the state and I go to traffic court if I want to fight it. These tickets don't add to the points on your license, and are made for the company to be profitable because not fighting them is so much simpler. If you decide not to pay the out of state company then they issue you an in state violation. Then, according to what I have heard, a police traffic officer who was never there is assigned to be the prosecutor which means you are not facing the reviewer who issued you the ticket from the private company. You don't get any idea about the maintenance of the equipment, what motivated the ticket, and address whether or not the officer is capable of making such a decision based upon varying road conditions. If it is obvious then you might have a second, but no way does .4 seconds become obvious. This is all for profit anyway since the data shows traffic cams increase accidents overall instead of lowering them,.
You seem caught up in it being 0.4 seconds over, but red lights already give you notice before they come on. Sounds like you need to pay more attention to that next time.
Green light: proceed through the intersection. Yellow light: stop before entering the intersection if able to reasonably, proceed through if not. Red: stop before entering the intersection. Learn those three simple things and red light cameras are not really an issue. (For the record, I'm ambivalent on red light cameras. On the one hand, I don't like robot police monitoring our movements, waiting to electronically cite us for any indiscretion. On the other hand, running red lights is really, really dangerous. So )
Agree with all of this. Running a red light is never worth potentially killing or seriously injuring others or oneself. We have traffic lights for a reason.
There is a reality about the time becoming red and the green on the other side. Running red lights after more than a couple seconds is extremely dangerous, and here in Floriduh you had better pay attention if you don't want to get t-boned. It is one thing about proceding through a light turning yellow, and another regarding traffic that has already entered the intersection. Like I said I am fine with paying when in the middle of the night I cruised through one pretty obviously, but .4 seconds after the red light comes on is about a second before the opposing traffic even has a green light, and there was clearly traffic already going through the light as I went through it. A person would have had to run their red light to be in the intersection when I crossed. This is why an officer should be determining the violation. All sorts of things can make slamming on your breaks going through a yellow problematic. Slamming on your breaks in the rain because a light turned yellow can easily send you into a slide if you are traveling with the speed limit. You have to make a choice as a driver regarding the safety of the road as you drive and having a controlled stop is better than having to jam on your breaks. So sometimes you chose to cruise through the yellow because emergency breaking is dangerous. Like has been shown by statistics longer yellow times than your minimum 4.5 second yellow decrease accidents at lights because they give a driver more time to safely decrease speeds. But feel free tog I've now some more basic arguments as I am going for a dismissal. The reality is I have information on my speed being really close to the speed limit showing I did not floor it to make it through the light, and a few seconds to show I followed traffic through the light which was clear. If they want to make some issue about unsafe driving they will certainly have their work cut out for them given speed and timing of the yellow.
.4 seconds is not running a variable length yellow when you are still within 4-5 seconds of traffic legally entering the intersection from a green from a full stop. Yes, the camera shows traffic at the light stopped in both directions, so it is not like some person could have legally physically come along traveling at speed and hoping to hit the green.
That's a lot of words equivocating over the fact that you a) ran a red light and b) had plenty of notice with a yellow light to come to a complete stop, unless you were speeding too.
Actually, these statements made me look up the normal time it takes to stop a car from 50 MPH which was the speed on the camera metadata regarding m car. Given good dry conditions the speed cited by a few different locations was appx 4 seconds. Meaning if everything was good this gives you about .5 second variance to make a decision at the speed I was going to stop within the time of the yellow light from the moment it turned yellow. Perhaps this is a reason why accidents increase at minimum yellow light intervals. If you vary for .5 seconds even if you started decelerating you would not be able to stop safely in good condition. This does not take into account added weight to a car, varied human alertness, road conditions like water, or things like tire conditions. Perhaps a light in a 50mph zone should have a longer amber time due to the increased time it takes to safely decelerate a car in good condition. I also have to check the time. I tend to be traveling through that intersection at sunrise, and it is a nasty area where the sun is right at where the light would be and very blinding. I followed a car through the intersection which could have meant I took longer to realize the yellow light because I was hit immediately with blinding sunlight so I followed the car in front of me rather than hammering the breaks and potentially causing a collision for the people blinded behind me. This case is toast.
Time of the ticket was early in the morning. One of the problems with that particular road which I drove daily is that you are traveling directly into the sun. Even with shades on it is harder to see the lights and their changes, and you are often navigating drivers who are breaking which are hard to see. The argument regarding the length of the yellow light being at state minimums and the speed limit and dangers of traffic at that hour will be compelling. It certainly should be much longer and creates a potentially unsafe intersection at those times of day. They should make these things cheaper. I might have actually paid a ticket less than a hundred if it didn't have points. They are going to have to work for the 250 dollars.
45. In honesty looking at the video it seems as if I was decelerating due to the person in front of me. I am not going to lie in that I was probably zipping through the last moment of the light. With decades of experience and a huge number of miles most people don't have, and I was not one of the problem people running through a light. I was going straight and there were really no stopped obstructions in front of me. I am not one of the people who is cruising through lights trying to beat them, and the footage shows that. They give me a good look at what I did, and it is not a radical move at all. I get that these light cameras should be used to catch some of the OMFG people I see almost daily I hope they do, but this is not one of those. I just simply don't drive like that. I wonder what the reasoning is behind sending the infraction. Don't get me wrong, that light has accidents at it all the time and I am actually glad they have the camera there. I imagine they are issuing a ton of tickets on people doing some outlandish things. In the past month I have seen at least three fender benders there, one serious. I generally try not to speed, and at that time of the morning I am just getting coffee. I am aware of my aggressive driving issues, but I don't do a lot of yellow light zooming at this age. Part of me learning to lower my anger levels and not get excited is not getting stressed about yellows and slowing down. It is just a light and I found that the rush to get through yellow was one of the things that constantly made my rage tick higher and higher. So over the years I have adopted a leave early and cruise defensively attitude which does not keep me on the edge of having to break all the time. This is why I am a bit shocked I got one of these. I know they are around, and if .4 seconds is the threshold that nails you I would think I would be getting a number of these. what is even worse is my dad who has never gotten a ticket in his life got one at the same light as me, I found out. He got one on the same day. His driving record is fucking angelic.
factor in not all intersections are created equal. Real life is not the simplistic pictures/diagrams in the driver's license manual we study getting ready for the test. How many lanes deep is the intersection we are crossing? In other words if it is eight lanes deep and we are crossing it (obviously then) it takes longer than crossing a road that is only four lanes deep/wide. If you get a short yellow you may not be all the way through the intersection when it turns red. Factor in a lower speed limit (increases the time it takes to get through) and we really have a rough time getting completely through a deep intersection on a yellow. Cars tailgating you is the biggest safety factor. Sometimes you have to make a choice - get rear ended or speed up to make the red. Cars camped out in the middle of the intersection (from various directions) trying to turn left waiting for a sliver of hope that there will be a hole in the oncoming traffic is yet another factor. My rules for accident (if not ticket) free driving are as such: assume everyone on the road is a fucking idiot except yourself, and work constantly on not having any holes in your defense. Try to not get near anyone who displays poor or unsafe driving.
i always had a good sense of my speed when I rode a motorcycle (mostly because it was old and the speedo wasn't reliable), but also of complicating conditions. case in point; along lakeshore road on the east side of the exhibition grounds is a great S-curve... a lot of fun to hit at higher speeds and lean into. unfortunately, there's also a traffic light mid point. beyond knowing how many lamp posts away I had to be to stop safely, to stop while at a high(er) speed could potentially require over running the lane to my right. Always have an escape route, but make sure there's nobody in it first.
This and if in doubt slow down. If lighting conditions are such that you can't see the traffic light well factor that in by giving yourself more time to assess. Speed limits aren't targets and decision making should be proactive, not reactive.
anybody here who's ever driven much in Atlanta knows this delightful spot! I thing General Sherman needs to come back from the grave and finish the job, starting right here!
