Last click nears for Va. Beach’s red-light cameras

[theearthisround]

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=88477&ran=66537

The city’s red-light camera program will end Friday when Virginia’s 10-year-old program that supported the cameras expires.

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Supporters of the cameras said they discouraged red-light runners. Opponents said they increased rear-end accidents and smacked of “Big Brother” regulation.

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Georgie Baller, who has lived in Virginia Beach since 1991, said she is glad to see the cameras go. She worried about rear-ending someone who saw the camera and decided to stop at the last minute.

“I think you’re going to go through it, you stop instead, and I’m going to hit you in the rear end,” she said. “That makes my insurance go up, and I don’t like you for that.

“I just think they cause more accidents than they prevent, ” she said.

[T Roosevelt]

1. Well maybe if she was paying attention

she wouldn't rear-end the person...

[billbuckhead]

4. If you hit someone in the rear end, it's your fault

We need these cameras in Atlanra cause running red lights at intersections is rampant and causes way worsr accidents that being rear ended.

[T Roosevelt]

9. I know

but I'm wondering if there weren't cameras whether she'd have the same rear-end risk.

I'd be interested in seeing a study done in Atlanta, since many reports don't show a benefit from the cameras.

[Coventina]

2. I hate red-light runners....but cameras are WRONG

I have a real problem when insurance companies supply the cameras to the cities in return for a cut of the profits from the tickets, and also they SHORTEN the length of the yellows. This increases danger, not reduces.

It's all a payola scam. It's not about safety.

[Squatch]

3. Which is worse...rear ending somebody or getting T-boned?

It's SOP here in Hampton Roads to wait at least 2 seconds when the light turns green for you. Amber lights are interpreted as "speed up, get through the light as fast as possible"

10-year program?

I've only seen one camera in VB, at the corner of Holland and Rosemont, and that was installed LAST YEAR.

[Xithras]

5. They do cause more accidents.

My hometown has just recently begun installing cameras on a handful of major instersections, and the rear end rate has already increased noticeably. When I stopped by a Taco Bell at one of the intersections last week, I was interrupted by squealing tires outside. I was suprised, but the manager was nonplussed...she said they get two or three of them an hour now. She also mentioned that there have been five accidents at the intersection since the cameras went up two months ago, but could only remember TWO in the entire prior two years she'd worked there.

Red light cameras are a revenue collection scheme for cities, nothing more. If I remember a local paper article correctly, the cameras cost the city about $20k a month EACH for monitoring and "administrative support", so there's a real drive to ticket as many people as possible. A lot of people know this, so they panic when the light turns yellow and lock up their brakes (personally, I floor it).

Most of the people I've discussed the cameras with locally have simply changed their routes to avoid the intersections entirely. That will undoubtably increase congestion and accident rates in other parts of the city as a result.

[sendero]

6. I'm sorry...

.... I'm not buying the rear-end argument.

You are not supposed to be running the light anyway. The only way you are going to rear-end anyone is if you are trying to blast through a light BEHIND another car that is trying to blast through.

Here in Dallas, light pushers are a huge problem, and they cause a lot of collisions, often quite nasty. I wish we had the damn cameras.

[AndyTiedye]

7. I Worry About *Getting* Rear-Ended

Yes, they do shorten the yellow at the lights with the cameras.
It is now necessary to SLAM ON THE BRAKES the instant it turns yellow.
Those with slower reaction-times either get ticketed (if they are first
in line) or rear-end the car in front of them.

[Captain Hilts]

8. Reason #347 to hate Va. Beach. Don't run red lights.

My mother lives near the intersection of Shore and Independence.

The whole city has been lost to suburban sprawl over the past twenty years. Yuck!

If my mother didn't live there, I'd never go back.

[smb]

10. Good!

Maybe in some perfect world free of historical baggage, it would be a good idea to have red-light cameras.

Maybe in some perfect world free of historical baggage, it would be a good idea to require voters to show at least cursory knowledge of the candidates and issues.

Here in the real world, where we do have historical baggage (abuse of traffic enforcement for tax-gathering and use of literacy tests as an end-run around the Fifteenth Amendment, respectively), both notions are irredeemably tainted.