Red Light District

Story from this morning's Birmingham News about a earnest fellow seeking to do away with red light runners. Alabama ranks fifth in the nation in fatalities caused by red light running, so on the face of it, it sounds like a worthy thing to undertake. But, as with anything begun by Bothered-Americans, there is probably more than meets the eye to the scientific study cited in the article.

[...] Daniel S. Turner, director of the University Transportation Center at the University of Alabama, and other researchers took the rankings one step further. They studied statistics for a nine-year period from 1993 to 2001 and found there were 47,501 traffic crashes caused by red-light running in Alabama. The crashes resulted in 16,500 injuries and 194 deaths during that period.

I'm sure it's in the report, but it would be nice to know what time of the day these occurred, whether the majority were in rural or urban locations, and if alcohol was involved. That sort of information might point to different solutions than the ones proposed in the article--

[...] Turner said stronger legislation, a public awareness campaign and traffic cameras would be a start to reducing the number of red-light deaths in the state.

He and researchers placed cameras at three Tuscaloosa intersections for 10 months. Some 2.7 million vehicles passed through the intersections along with 13,467 red-light runners. [...]

Again, no real information about time and condition of the driver, just cold numbers. Which when you do the math, comes out to about 1/2 of 1 percent of the vehicles going through the intersection. Obviously, it only takes one loon to kill someone, but the ideas of how best to deal with the Half-Percenters should give all drivers some concern.

The traffic camera is the one that appeals most to public scolds--and is the one which has caused the most conflict among the population in places where they are installed. Four separate articles by Csaba Csere (9/01) and by Patrick Bedard (2/02, 9/02, and 12/02) of Car and Driver magazine point out the drawbacks to such systems--tickets are issued to a vehicle owner, regardless of who might be driving; the systems are usually installed, monitored, and maintained by private companies who get a cut of the revenue generated, making them susceptible to the temptation of jiggering the machinery to insure a steady flow of cash; there is a relatively high level of false results, which require time and money to fight in court.

The abuses by public officials of this enforcement tool are well detailed in the articles, and although the camera systems sound like a win-win for cash starved muncipal goverments, there is probably a better way to cut down even further the number of otherwise nondrunk, nonidiotic, everyday folks running the red lights--make the yellow light last longer...

[...] D.C. police defend their ticket machine by saying red-light running has dropped 64 percent since they cranked it up. Congressman Armey, a skeptic, observes that all those violations that were dismissed due to irregularities are back in the count to make "before" look worse that it was.

If reducing violations were really the point, then D.C. would follow the example of nearby Fairfax County, Virginia, which chopped red-light running to less than 1/10th its former rate at the corner of U.S. 50 and Fair Ridge Drive. The miracle was accomplished by lengthening the yellow to 5.5 seconds from 4.0. No civil rights were trampled in the process.

But there was a casualty. With citations dropping to less than one a day, the ticket machine is a total wreck.

(Bedard, 12/02)

No word if our fellow in Tuscaloosa explored this alternative.
posted by Terry at 9:04:00 AM