The following is via MFoxNY:
Red-light cameras are a fact of life on the streets of New York City: 170 cameras are installed at 150 intersections.
But are some of the cams a scam?
AAA New York found four intersections where the cameras may go off too quickly, meaning the yellow or amber lights don’t last a full 3 seconds, the city’s minimum standard.
The intersections in question have yellow lights that are tenths of a second too short, but it can make a big difference: First Avenue and 125th Street, Madison Avenue and 96th Street, Amsterdam Avenue and 110th Street, and Amsterdam Avenue and 96th Street.
Drivers at that location had mixed opinions about the cameras.
The city says red-light cameras are there to keep people not to make money but they sure do make a lot of it: more than $47 million in 2011.
(Source: MyFoxNY)
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7 Responses
“The city says red-light cameras are there to keep people (safe) not to make money but they sure do make a lot of it: more than $47 million in 2011.”
While conveniently ignoring the numerous published studies that have found that these cameras actually increase crashes.
To drivers its a “scam.” To city taxpayers, it’s a very clever idea. To lawyers, it’s a chance for parnassah.
Faulty. Not a scam.
also on beach channel drive
To No. 3: Excellent point. Deviances of 10ths of seconds are understandable.
But the real savings are (i) dollars of insurance premiums that will go down if fewer of us run red lights and cause accidents that cause insurance claims and insurance premium rate increases, and (ii) lives saved, which are priceless.
#5, there are no savings, either of money or of lives. The only function of these cameras is to increase revenue for the company that runs them.
“Deviances of 10ths of seconds are understandable”
No, they’re not. Especially when they are deliberately miscalibrated. It’s not as if this is the first time this has been discovered; it happens over and over, in every city that has these cameras, and the mistake is always in one direction only.