Challenge every Red Light Camera Ticket!

Lockheed Martin puts in all those fancy $100,000 signal lights and splits
the revenue flow from all the tickets.

These signal lights are supposed to cut down on violators, but in
actuality, they create violations. This is because the yellow light
interval is short-cycled on purpose to increase the number of red light
runners. Since the advent of these automated ticket generators, the yellow
light interval has been dangerously shortened.

As the yellow is shortened, the "go", "no go", decision is narrowed.
Drivers are supposed to treat the yellow as a green if they are too close
to the intersection to make a normal stop. They are supposed to treat the
yellow as a red if they can make a normal stop. If the yellow is shortened
enough, the yellow will trap every driver into either entering an
intersection on a red and being ticketed or making a panic stop and risk
being rear-ended. For that reason, there are tables and recommendations
for timing the yellow.

Ideally, the yellow should be 3 seconds minimum for a posted 30 mph zone,
with an additional 1 second for every 10 mph. Say you have a posted 50 mph
zone. The yellow should be 5 seconds. With a red clearance interval of
one second, whereby the intersection is blocked by red signals in both
directions, the total safety clearance time is 6 seconds. This describes a
safetly timed intersection. Traffic experts will attest to this formula.

Lockheed Martin recklessly disregards these safe times and routinely times
their signals for a 3 second yellow on 50 mph roads. You will typically
see skid marks at these intersections, attesting to their danger caused by
drivers making panic stops to avoid being nailed by a red. It is not to
the pecuniary advantage of Lockheed Martin to time intersections according
to a safe formula because then, only deliberate red light runners will be
ticketed. To make their venture into the cash cow it is, they time the
lights to trap careful drivers who follow the rules of the road, but are
victimized by slowing reflexes or even worse, the laws of physics. Even
worse then having to pay unjust tickets, accidents have been caused by
these very lights promoted in the name of reducing just such accidents.

If you are involved in an accident at one of these short cycled
intersections, bring Lockheed Martin into court and make them face the
music. The net has a lot of data to support the assertions made above. If
you are ticketed, you need to also supeona Lockheed Martin officials and
any officials that made the decision to set you up for an unwarranted
ticket. Any reasonable judge should dismiss your case if you can show
deliberate disregard for timing standards.

Class action lawyers might give this some consideration. Possibly hundreds
of thousands of tickets could be reversed with all such fines returned
along with claims filed for consequential damage such as jacked-up
insurance rates.

 

Lockheed Martin puts in ALL those 100K $ signals? I GUESS you mean the ones
with the cameras on them? I see them go up in my city pretty regular now. I
always see a CITY truck and workers doing it. If the city buys this crap
from Lockheed Martin that just goes to show you how stupid and the "money is
no object" attitude government has. I mean really, it takes a company like
Lockheed Martin to develope and sell this??? And it takes small goverments
to buy it? Morons.....Anyway, I like them....I am getting sick and tired of
having to drive defensively just to get through a GREEN light. I was on my
motorcycle one day and a guy in a motorhome tryed to kill me and all I was
doing was leaving the intersection when the light turned green. The dumbass
didnt even slow down. I was so surprized I looked twice at the light to see
if *I* ran it red....The others (and him) were turning in front of me on the
green, there was a big gap in vehicles, then BAM, theres a motorhome turning
right in front of me running the red light big time.....Like I said, I like
the cameras......it makes those morons stop at a red light for once, and not
just gun it when its good and yellow.

 

I agree there are some real morons driving out there today.
Bring on the cameras.

 

There was a big stink in the news last year of short yellows when cameras
were installed. News people checked and they were not short compared to
lights without cameras. People just don't like getting tickets.

 

Yes there are morons out there but the cameras have to be properly
implemented not to have a *negative* impact on safety. Shorter yellow
lights make an intersection less safe. Unfortunately shortened yellows
also make money for the local gov't.

nate

 

Especially tickets for driving in a reasonable manner. I would think
that that falls under the category of "things so obvious that they don't
really need to be said."

nate

 

Yep... if it were true. But it isn't.

 

No, they don't.

http://www.photocop.com/
Who Delivers This Technology?

Most photo-enforcement equipment in use around the world is manufactured
by American Traffic Systems (ATS), Driver Safety Systems, Ltd. (DSS),
Econolite, Gatsometer, Multinova, Peek, TraffiPax, or Truvelo. Usually,
however, jurisdictions buy from distributors such as Electronic Data
Systems (EDS) who resell the equipment and provide processing services
as well, and SAIC-Syntonic also distribute photo-enforcement systems.
Only Redflex provides complete manufacture, distribution, and processing
services in the United States. (Until recently ATS also provide complete
solutions. However, they sold their U.S. processing contracts to RedFlex
and cannot offer the service again until 2002. ATS still manufactures
equipment and teams with other vendors such as Mulvihill Electric of New
York in offering complete service packages. Only a few manufacturers
like American Traffic Systems (ATS), Redflex, and Poltech seem committed
to rapidly improving the technology. Many European manufactures are
slower to change since the time and expense to get a new system
certified in the EC is great.

Cite?

Hell "not holdin' my breath" Toupee

 

True for some, but not for others. You have to check them because the
folks who set them up have a lot of profit in mind when they do so.

 

What's more, checking the yellow-light duration at intersections with
cameras against that at intersections without cameras isn't the right way
to do it. It's common for a local red-light running problem to be entirely
due to insufficient yellow-light duration at ALL intersections. In such
cases, increasing the YLD frequently causes red light violations to
plummet dramatically--but it doesn't bring in the $$$$$ like red-light
cameras.

 

It is true. There are guidelines that have to be followed when setting
up the timing for intersections. You may want to take a peek at 'The
Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices'. The guidelines are based on
many years worth of data. If followed, you end up with a safer road. Not
following the guidelines leads to dangerous road conditions. Not following
the guidelines also allows unscrupulous companies to make money selling
red light cameras, so they will compromise safety to make more money.

 

Well welcome to the Nanny state. I am glad you have no historical facts
on freedom and responsibality. It is a direct afront to our fore fathers
that such a unmaned automatic ticket machine is ok with you. Don`t be
bitching when they come for your phone, computer, TV and any other thing
you might do something illegal on. enjoy you monitored life. KB

 

Google for the recent case in CA where just such an occurrance was
PROVED - as well as the ongoing debate about the same situation in
Washington, D.C.

nate

 

you are both morons..
those that run reds, will still run them. even with a shorter yellow
interval.

same mentality with tail-gaters... they don't think they are tail-gating.

the shorter yellow will cause inconsistencies in driving habits until one
gets used to it.

i prefer unmarked traffic police vehicles...

-a|ex

 

Apparently Lockheed Martin IMS manages the billing for the tickets and
gets a cut of the take. See:
http://207.178.248.67/editorial/signal/1001/100501.html

I specifically remember hearing a radio news item - I'm guessing four or
five years ago - that it had been proven in LA that the privately
contracted company that did the billing (which I assume from the
above-cited article to be Lockheed Martin IMS) was:
(1) Getting a piece of the action, and
(2) Had intentionally short-cycled the yellow light as a mutually
beneficial method of increasing both their profits and city revenues - a
win-win conflict of interest. Very believable.

I can see a company making a pitch to a city government to guarantee
increased revenues for the city if the company was allowed to manage the
system. Politicians love that kind of pay-its-own way systems where the
city has little or no expense, no increase in its payroll (no additional
employees needed to be hired, no additional load on existing employees)
and generated additional income - true safety becomes a secondary
consideration relative to balancing budgets (if you can assume no
kickbacks). Definitely a conflict of interest and an invitation to
corruption.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')

 

the cops are great but never there to see it. Sorry but your wrong. I see it
every day at 2 intersections I go through. It funny, people actually stop
when they know theres a camera.....

 

Around here, Santa Clarita CA, these lights have put a stop to turning left
long after the light has changed red. Before the cameras, as many a eight or
nine cars would continue to turn left long after the red thus clogging up
the intersections and causing accidents. Now, everyone (or nearly so)
complies. I vote to keep the cameras.

 

Something else you might want to think about. Not all of the cameras are
there for ticketing purposes. Some cities have them setup for real time
monitoring. Interesections with unusually high traffic accidents will be
monitored real time so that there is no delay in dispatching emergency
personnel to the scene.

Don Manning

 

Bandaid fix that raises revenue for the county. The real problem is probably
that the intersection is poorly designed and needs to be re-configured. The
red light cameras will not prevent accidents that will happen because of the
poor design. The real solution would be to have an engineer study the
intersecion and re-design the intersection. Then implement the new design.
That way you minimize the number of red light runners and make the intersection
safer. Of course this won't raise revenue for the politicians to spend, so it
is not a popular solution.

 

They could spend a bit of money on getting an engineer to study the
intersection to see why it is so dangerous. Once they identify the cause,
they can come up with a solution. Having a camera there to send help
when necessary is better than nothing, but not by much.