Red-Light Cameras: More Money, More Accidents
by Judd WileyMay 4th, 2008, 5:42 pm
There are two things you should know about red-light cameras.
The first is that government administrators view red-light cameras as a revenue source above all else. Oh, they talk a good game about public safety. They hold press conferences and take credit for decreasing accidents and saving lives. But when the red-cameras don’t bring in enough cash, the administrators quietly take them away.
Here’s an example. In March, Dallas turned off more than 25 percent of 62 red-light cameras that monitor busy intersections because they were failing to generate enough red-light-running fines to justify their operational costs. Decreasing accidents and saving lives wasn’t important any more.
The second thing you need to know is that red-light cameras actually increase accidents. Yes, it’s really quite brilliant. In addition to taking your money, the government has engineered a system that causes greater harm to drivers.
In the past, drivers used to sneak through intersections at the last minute - as the light was turning red or just slightly afterwards. The result was T-bone collisions when a second car squashed into the side of the first car. With red-light cameras, drivers now jam on their brakes so that they don’t receive a computer-generated ticket. This has led to a sharp uptick in rear-end collisions.
Plenty of academic research exists proving that red-light cameras increase accidents:
- The North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University’s Urban Transit Institute looked at five years’ worth of data and concluded that accident rates increased 40 percent at intersections with cameras, and injury crashes rose between 40 and 50 percent. Read the full study.
- The Virginia Transportation Research Council conducted a seven-year study showing that crashes at intersections with red light cameras increased 29 percent. Read the full study.
- The University of South Florida’s College of Public Health recently concluded a study in which it found that traffic fatalities caused by red-light running are dropping and currently account for less than four percent of the state’s yearly traffic deaths. In contrast, more than 22 percent of fatalities occur at intersections for reasons other than red-light running. Read the full study.
So don’t worry if the stupid administrators in your local community remove the red-light cameras. You’ll pay less and be safer.
Posted in Red-Light Cameras, Traffic Accidents |
I’d never heard of these studies about the safety impact of red-light cameras, so I viewed these links with great interest.
From reviewing the literature you’ve provided, however, I fail to see evidence to damn red-light cameras overall — rather, evidence that installing the cameras without considering the overall design of the intersection will have unfortunate and unexpected consequences.
The main issue appears to be giving motorists adequate time to stop. Without the cameras installed, drivers will drive through a second after red if they have not time to stop beforehand. But with the cameras, they may slam on the brakes instead, resulting in a collision. But, as your linked documents note, this situation can be avoided by increasing the yellow time, adding a grace period, and extending the all-red portion of the cycle. Determining the proper amount of yellow requires considering a large number of factors unique to each intersection.
The main problem, as far as I can see, is municipalities that allow contractors to install the cameras fee-free for a portion of the revenues. Such contractors have no incentive whatsoever, and may not even have the power, to adjust other factors of the intersection alongside the new cameras.
Another issue unique to New York City is that there is almost no traffic enforcement whatsoever. The NYPD is simply too busy with other things to ticket any but the absolutely most egregious cases of bad driving — think speeding down a one-way street to get an idea of how bad it has to get. In that environment, red-light cameras may be worse than good human enforcement, but are almost certainly better than no enforcement whatsoever.
Ian,
I agree with you completely that allowing contractors to install, operate, and maintain red-light cameras is a bad policy. The contractors are financially incentivized to “catch” more cars running red lights, sometimes as much as 50 percent of the ticket price I’ve been told, although I need better sources for this. There’s also the privacy issue - DC for instance has used private contractors to process the tickets, which gives them access to proprietary information that in my judgement they shouldn’t have.
Before I respond to the rest of your comments, I’m going to re-read the studies listed above. You make some very thoughtful and interesting points.
In the meantime, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this story from Los Angeles - Apparently, 80% of red-light camera tickets issued are for right-turn violations, i.e. not coming to a complete stop before you turn right.