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Cities Upset That Increasing Yellow Light Time Length Reduces 'Revenue'
from the safety-first? dept
With the news that Mississippi has passed a law banning traffic light cameras because it's an invasion of privacy, it's worth looking a bit to the east, where some cities in Georgia are taking down their red light cameras not because of privacy issues, but because a new law required them to increase the length of time that a light is yellow by one second -- and that's decreased red light violations so significantly, that red light cameras have become "too expensive" (thanks to Scott Cauthen for sending that story in). This is what critics of red light cameras have said from the beginning: it's always been about the revenue, rather than the safety. If you want safety, all you need to do is increase the length of yellow lights, and you have fewer people running red lights and significantly fewer accidents. But... if revenue is your goal, then you do things like decrease the yellow light timing -- which is what a few cities have been caught doing.
