Topic: Colorado

Denver, Colorado, caught exploiting short yellow lights

April 3, 2008 |

Denver, Colorado was caught this week attempting to add red light cameras at intersections with short yellow times. Rocky Mountain News reporters videotaped the city’s four proposed ticketing locations and discovered that each had a yellow signal time set at 3.0 seconds — a figure below recommended standards.

A 2005 Texas Transportation Institute study confirmed that yellows shorter than the bare minimum recommended amount cause an increase in both accidents and red light violations. A confidential memorandum obtained from a 2001 court trial in San Diego, California showed that the private vendor in charge of the photo ticketing program take advantage of that increase in the number of violations, as most companies are compensated on a per-ticket basis. For this reason, the company chose to install cameras only at intersections with high volume and Amber (yellow) phase less than four seconds.” «Read the rest of this article»

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