A few thoughts, First off, yellow light duration is set according to MNDOT guidelines. These guidelines are based mostly on the posted speed through the area with a variance for grade and for width of the intersection. Any attempt by a city to deviate from this, especially by going under, is going to be very obvious and will result in that city having some es'plainin to do.
These guidelines can be viewed at http://www.dot.state.mn.us/trafficeng/signaloperations/2004TrafficSignalTimingandCoordinationManual.pdf See page 4-20 (yellow light timing). Looking at the chart, a 35mph intersection at zero grade should have 3.6 secs yellow. A 55mph at zero grade is 5.5 secs. As some folks here have already pointed out, extending the yellow time longer will just give another car the opportunity to sneak through OR will increase the danger to the person that does actually yield to the yellow instead of blasting through. Another option that has been used to decrease intersection crashes is to increase the "hold" time on the red - lengthen the duration of the red in all directions before changing the intersecting green light. This gives the benefit of clearing the intersection while still making it clear that a person has run the red light. I think it's also worth commenting that the purpose of a yellow light is not to convey "Oh, let me interupt my cell phone call to punch the gas so I don't get delayed by 30 seconds at a red". It's also not to say "OHMYGOD! The lights going to change, jam the brakes!". It's to communicate to the driver that the light will be changing soon, and if they can safely slow and stop to do so, but if they are too close to stop then they should procede through the light safely and clear the intersection. The key thing here is the driver's decision about their speed and their ability to stop before the light. There will always be people that are either unable or unwilling to make an intelligent/safe decision. I don't really see how you can call a red light ticket a "tax". If EVERY car the passed through the intersection was charged (like the congestion pricing in London) then it would be a tax. I suppose you could call running red lights a "sin tax", like cigarettes or gambling, but you're still talking the difference between an illegal act and a regulated activity. Also regarding the revenue generation, aren't red light tickets the same as any other moving violation in MN where the majority of the fee goes to the County to pay for court costs? The State and the City only get a small portion of the fee collected. Another valuable resource is this document that gives the stats on a red light camera test project here in the Metro back in 1998, http://www.dot.state.mn.us/trafficeng/reports/MIRSRPT98.pdf Note some of the statistics, at 5th Ave & 9th St in Mpls, 56% of violators entered the intersection 1.0 seconds after red, 35% after 1.5, and a frightening 18% after 3.5 seconds!! John Keewaydin _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
