As initiative-whore Tim Eyman’s anti-red-light-camera crusade continues both in court and at the ballot box, yet another study (pdf) has been released showing that red light cameras save lives, this latest study from the Texas Transportation Institute, a part of the Texas A&M University System.
Examining more than 11,000 crash records at 275 intersections, and comparing crash frequencies one, two, and three years before and after installation, researches found red light cameras to be “an effective means of preventing crash-related deaths and injuries.”
An overall reduction of 633 crashes recorded at those intersections represents an 11 percent decline statewide. Red light-related crashes dropped by 25 percent, and right-angle crashes (the most severe type) dropped by 32 percent. … The examination showed a 23 percent drop from one year before to one year after cameras were put into use. The two- and three-year comparisons reflected reductions of 27 percent and 21 percent, respectively.
Both the data and the conclusion are consistent with a prior study conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the same organization that issues those widely touted vehicle safety ratings.
When Bellingham Mayor Dan Pike stopped by the office to put a bug in our ears about the proposed Cherry Point coal terminal (and the 18 coal trains a day it would send through Seattle), I got to ask him about the anti-red-light-camera initiative Eyman is putting on their local ballot. Pike seems pretty confident Bellingham will reject the initiative, saying that he’s talked to “north of a thousand voters,” and most were against it. Pike also questions the value of the Eyman brand: “My gut reaction from 65 to 70 percent of Bellingham voters,” Pike says, “is that when Tim shows up, their inclination is to vote against it.”
Here’s hoping it’s Eyman’s misguided initiative that crashes and burns in Bellingham, rather than its inevitable victims.
Ok, maybe I’m missing it, but where does this study say injuries were reduced? It lists accidents and types of accidents reduced (or increased), with the type that tends to cause more injuries being reduced, but it doesn’t look like they actually made any actual (rather than inferred) claims about actual changes in injury rates.
It seems the only legitimate concern I’ve heard over red light cameras is the fact that the private companies that operate them have a financial incentive to increase the number of violation recorded.
Removing this aspect (ideally, restructuring the contracts—provided it doesn’t make fiscal sense for the city to own the cameras outright—with less emphasis on commission, and mandating the debated yellow light times) should put to rest any rationale concerns for these cameras.
Wish they had more cameras downtown here where pedestrian traffic is heaviest. They’d make a killing off those greedy fuckers who end up getting stuck on the crosswalk or in the middle of a four-way intersection.
Jesus, Goldy, still on about this? And still cherry-picking surveys and quotes from surveys that support your position?
There may be some merit to the study. However, there are obvious flaws an honest person would call out:
* Doesn’t use a control group of intersections without cameras; it only looks at collisions at intersections with cameras. Did collisions in general decline for unrelated reasons? Who knows?
* Doesn’t control for yellow light timing or other changes even at the intersections they did look at. Did Texas change the rules to increase yellow length, which has been repeatedly shown to reduce crashes? Who knows?
* Doesn’t control for traffic volume. Did some of these intersections see reduced traffic and therefore crashes? Who knows?
* 5 out of 22 communities surveyed didn’t use light timing where all lights are red for some period, meaning that one side turns green either at or before the moment another turns red. Red light cameras did appear to reduce crashes in these (as long as you ignore the missing controls)… but how did the reduction compare to what an all-red timing would do? Who knows?
* Several communities reported an increase in red light crashes either in the first or second year after installing cameras. But, because they show reduced crashes in year 3, this anomaly is cheerfully thrown out and they are counted as having a net benefit. If year 1 has less crashes than the baseline, and year 2 has more, and year 3 has less, what would year 4 show? Who knows?
And that’s from just a cursory reading. It seems pretty clear that the conclusion to this study was written first, and the methodology and lack of any attempt to control for other factors were designed to support the conclusion.
It’s fine to have a little crusade and champion it, but it’s more respectable if you can at least pretend to look at the evidence with a critical eye.
@2: The other downside is that cities tend to use yellow light timing to control revenue. See http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-…
Also, cameras would do nothing for idiots who end up stuck in the crosswalk. That is a violation too, and should be ticketed, but as long as the car doesn’t enter the intersection it won’t get a red light ticket. I am not sure if cameras would ticket a car that entered the intersection on a green (out of greed) but got stuck. I don’t think so.
On top of financial incentives, let us not forget that this is passive government observation.
“Those willing to sacrafice liberty for security deserve neither” -Benjamin Franklin
It still greatly confuses me that you are so in favor of governmental observation and computerized application of punishment of the people, Goldy.
@5: Note that red light cameras are only triggered when a violation is detected. It’s not really the same thing as passive surveillance. And the Franklin quote is great, but are you suggesting that running red lights is a “liberty” that people shouldn’t sacrifice?
I hate red light cameras because I believe they are a scam that incents governments to create less safe intersections. The same (or greater) benefits can be accrued by changing yellow timing and having a 1 second all-red phase, but that’s not a revenue-generator. I’m not quite willing to see the cameras as big brother, though.
@4 – That’s what I meant when I said yellow light timing should be mandated, the phrase “should be” probably showing my naivete. I’m guessing there’s already a standard calculation civil engineers use to determine the yellow light timings for each light, this should be applied as law. I don’t know what’s to prevent city’s from lying about it, same as anything I guess.
As for those getting stuck in the middle—now that I think about it, you’re right, we’d never be able to turn on a red if cameras were set to flash every time someone crossed the crosswalk on red, and encourage those already stuck to remain there and block traffic until the light changed.
Speaking of which, how is there no cottage industry of personal light time devices to contest camera tickets with yet? These could be the radar detectors of the 2010s.
@7 – That view is completely consistent with what he wrote today. He was just saying “sucks when it happens to you.”
If you’re looking for a constitutional argument, the Minnesota Supreme Courty struck down red light cameras years ago: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/16/1688…
“The city’s photo ticket program offered the accused fewer due process protections than available to motorists prosecuted for the same offense in the conventional way after having been pulled over by a policeman. The court argued that Minneapolis had, in effect, created a new type of crime: “owner liability for red-light violations where the owner neither required nor knowingly permitted the violation.”
“The problem with the presumption that the owner was the driver is that it eliminates the presumption of innocence and shifts the burden of proof from that required by the rules of criminal procedure,” the court concluded.”
This study is utterly worthless. It compares fatality accidents from 1992-1996 (before cameras) with fatality accidents from 2004-2008 (after cameras).
Was it red lights that led to fewer fatalities, or the fact that CARS BECAME A HELL OF LOT SAFER OVER THE INTERVENING 12 YEARS? With, like, airbags and shit.
They would have done better to compare the rates of all accidents, not just those involving fatalities. Even then, that doesn’t control for differences in handling and braking, traffic volumes, etc. between those two time periods.
Worthless.
6: the cameras are constantly scanning for infractions, then activate when an infraction occurs = passive governmental observation.
Why does that matter?
It matters because in most areas of a free society, there are financial limits to policing every citizen. With the advent of passive technology like this, it becomes possible to be constantly monitored for any types of crime. But wait, before you say “Well if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.” That’s not exactly how free speech works. When everybody knows they are being monitored and face potential retribution, behavior changes– a willingness to act changes– annonynymity compromised will chill free speech and the expression of such.
Now if you are asking what running a red light has to do with free speech, imagine if you will a very easy and very available tweak on these cameras to include facial recognition software (plate recognition is already on board), or also perhaps behavioral recognition software. No imagine a street protest below these cameras. Boom—- every participant in that protest can now be identified, can now be tracked. No need to pay for what would take 1,000 FBI agents to do like in the past, write down license plate numbers, etc. (known activities of the government during prior lawful displays of free speech of other eras).
This isn’t tin hat stuff…it is a nice slick, easy slippery slope into the socialization and normalization of governmental observation, whether you acknowledge it as such or not. While this might not be the intention of the municipalities, do you trust Homeland Security to not take advantage of accepted technologies in our communities?
I could go on, but standing up for freedom makes those willing to do so seem crazy these days.
It’s nice to have laws in theory, but heaven forbid we actually enforce them. If it makes people think twice and maybe a little more intelligently about the dangerous machine that they are operating, I’m for it.
@10, No insult to you Lump, but that Minnesota decision reeks of bullshit. Are we really saying that it’s a bad thing that running a red light and getting your picture taken because it’s too hard to argue your innocence when you get caught so completely red-handed? I’m not entirely sure what the last line of the second paragraph means.
@12 – I think I’ve got an article that may make your head explode.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg…
@12: So, shouldn’t cops be illegal? I mean, they just cruise around, looking for wrongdoing.
And yes, you are in tinfoil hat territory. You’re arguing against snaphot-based red light cameras because they *could* be modified to capture other images and *could* be used in conjunction with facial recognition to arrest *potential* protestors in an *imagined* future police state.
Arguing that something real is wrong because it might lead to something imagined is the very definition of tin foil hat material. It’s the same as people who argue against gay marriage because it could lead to polygamy based on child rape.
12: I’m aware of the saturation of these devices, and how authorities can probably just as easily get access to other private camera networks without warrant. Sucks.
15: that’s not what I meant and you know it.
The license technology is a fact, and if you are naive enough to believe that data mining and future abuse is guarded against, you’re naive, and everything about the FBI’s prior behavior regarding information collecting beyond legal limits informs future action.
There isn’t enough evidence that these are good for society, so I’m just piling on that that are bad in general.
@17: Then please stop the piling on. The paranoid angle — even if it were justified — weakens the legit arguments. Lets’s argue the red light camera issue based on the merits and evidence, and not speculation about how they might be misused in the future by the Big Bad Government. Most people, including me, see that as pure tin foil hat.
17: the first words I used in my argument were “On top of financial incentives, let us not forget that this is passive government observation. “
I will relent in adding the defense of privacy to the debate, but I urge others to consider the alternative applications of this technology in the absence of redeeming qualities.
sorry, bad at @’ing.
19 was for 18
@9…
Lazy @7 knows that my HA post on the subject is entirely consistent with my posts here, but he keeps pointing to it anyway, insisting otherwise. In fact, if anything, the HA post boosts my credibility on the subject, since it shows that I still support red light cameras despite having gotten a ticket.
For fuck sake Goldy…. Yeah… the cameras may have an added benefit but so does good traffic engineering. The latter being a far more palatable option than having citizens fork over money to a private for profit company being paid to essentially police our intersections for profit!!!! I though you were FOR government and less privatization of it! WTF? Is it just because it’s Eyman?
if there is a study out there, it HAS to be true!
Here’s the deal Goldy:
We’re going to run red light cameras out of Washington and there isn’t jack shit you can do about it.
You used to be fun when you had your blog but now that you’re at the Stranger, you’re down to Dominic’s level, just a punk little nanny scold.
“I though you were FOR government and less privatization of it! WTF?”
It’s entirely consistent with his “the nanny state is ALWAYS right” attitude.
Hey guys, excuse me for citing science. You may not want red light cameras to be effective at preventing accidents. You may still oppose them even if they are effective. But that doesn’t mean they’re not.
I got a red light camera ticket once, was mad about it for fifteen minutes. Then, because I’m an adult, was relieved that I hadn’t hurt anybody and am now more cautious at traffic lights. Driving is a privilege not a right, if you don’t want to be monitored while you travel take the bus or walk.
I hate the cameras, but I hate the use of the word ‘North’ as a synonym for “greater than” even more.
“Gee, I got north of three red light camera tickets, Eyman, can you do something about those?”
So why not put cameras in parks if they’re so great? Oh that’s right….
Running a red light = crime against society.
Mugging someone = social justice problem.
I’m confused about these studies. I don’t see a control. To test, isn’t the idea to put up cameras in one intersection and then not put them up in a similar intersection and look at the results. Do we know if the intersections had signed? Could it be easier to put up signs warning drivers and then not put up the camera? If the study was looking at the effect of the signage, why not just give drivers the illusion of mailed tickets? If the studies show it so clearly saves lives it’s our duty to trick drivers into thinking they should stop or they’ll get a ticket.
A variable they didn’t account for, over time unless readjusted the yellow light timers can increase. So if at the same time they were doing this study the yellow light times were increased due to the technology degrading, it will have proved everything I wasted typing into this blog. Yellow lights save lives. Yellow lights save lives. Your cameras? Maybe, possibly, on some level, in some way, with the exact right conditions, but yellow light times? That’s just a fact.
@26:
No, Goldy, you’re just flat full of shit. You’re cherry-picking your “evidence” and you think we’re too damn dumb to know the difference. That’s not journalism. It’s pure Erica C. Barnett bullshit.
We can’t afford to educate WA’s kids, but we can afford the cost of cameras and installations of cameras to surveil our driving?
Of course “studies show” always, when the paternal state needs them to. Did you know that LSD causes chromosome damage? Studies show!
@26 Enough with the BS. This is NOT science, it’s anecdotal. But if it fits your narrative.
Studies have/should state: “…there is not enough empirical evidence based on a statistically rigorous experimental design to state [that automated enforcement of red light running can be an effective safety countermeasure] conclusively.”
In the table at the top of page 5, it states that rear-end accidents at city intersections *increased* by 169%. To me, it is pretty clear that the study confirms my biggest concern about the cameras – that they encourage people to make panic stops to avoid a ticket, greatly increasing the risk of a rear-end collision.
Eyman may be a jerk, but this study is actually pretty damning when it comes to using traffic cameras at city intersections. It takes a pretty shallow look at the data to come to any other conclusion.