April 14, 2008
Union City Traffic Light Scam
Union City--just south north [our xenophobia is showing!] of Fremont, near Newark and Hayward--was recently caught re-timing their traffic signals so that the yellow light is shorter than the legal limit. Why? Well, this makes it easier for motorists to run a red light, then get caught by the red-light cameras, which in turn gets the city more money from increased traffic tickets.
Of course, shorter yellow lights also makes an intersection more dangerous for both pedestrians and drivers.
According to Left Lane (via Motorists.org), five other cities were also found guilty of doing the same thing: Dallas and Lubbock, TX, Nashville and Chattanooga, TN, Springfield, MO. One of those cities, it seems, had to "issue refunds by more than $1 million to motorists who were issued tickets for running red lights."
Apparently these are "just instances that have been identified" in yellow-light trickery. More may be more out there.
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Union City is north of Fremont. Between Fremont and Hayward. Not South.
I would fashion a guess that all cities that have these cameras have adjusted their yellows to near/below this "legal limit" of... yellowness.
How long is that supposed to be, anyway?
There is no fixed "legal limit" for yellow lights. It is an engineering best practice, and the range of acceptable timings is fairly large.
Since the discussions of this topic mostly consist of remarks like "f*** the police" instead of acual facts about the timing changes I have little sympathy for anyone getting ticketed. Rememeber, judges and legislators care f***-all about traffic safety - the California Highway Patrol was prohibited from using radar until about 10 years ago.
A fairly coherent discussion of the yellow light timing issues:
http://knowledge.fhwa.dot.gov/cops/OpsPublic.nsf/discussionDisplay?Open&id=0AD50D70C392E58985257105000E48DA&Group=Signals&tab=DISCUSSION
Yeah, going south would put you in Milpitas, The Capital Of San Jose.
Fortunately, my MUNI route does not take me "out there" to the Great Beyond -- or my bus drivers would all receive tickets for running the falsely-stale yellows.
wsanders, what do radar guns have to do with traffic safety? i'd say they are more about revenue collection.
@wsanders: wrong, wrong wrong.
First see:
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21455_7.htm
Then see page 4D-50 here:
http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/signtech/mutcdsupp/pdf/camutcd/CAMUTCD-Part4.pdf
Issuing ticket refunds to screwed-over motorists isn't enough. What about their increased insurance premiums? The costs of traffic school?
I am right right right. I guarantee you that none of the lights in question are under the values specified in Table 4D-102(CA).
Most of these crybabies are whiners going 50 in a 35. If you're going 15 over the limit, and you can't stop in time for the light, tough shit.
wsanders: in your post post you claim that there is no legal limit to yellow light times. Now you're simply claiming that the lights in question are over the legal limits. You're wrong on both accounts.
The source story on motorists.org reports that the times for the lights were originally under 3 seconds. The city lost the case. Of course, that was 2005 so this makes this really old news.
my typos
post post = first post
under 3 seconds = at 3 seconds