The Guy The State Of Oregon Said Wasn't A Real Engineer Just Helped Convince The Government To Extend Yellow Light Intervals

from the so-much-for-shutting-the-guy-up dept

Longer yellow lights are on the way, thanks in part to a man a state government agency once forbade from criticizing red light cameras without a proper license.

As The Newspaper reports, the Institute of Transportation Engineers -- which develops standards for managing all aspects of driving under the US Department of Transportation -- has agreed with recommendations made by a team of engineers that found ITE-approved yellow light timing standards reduced public safety and resulted in more accidents.

Traffic signal yellow times could begin rising at intersections throughout the country next year. The Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) expects to have a proposal in early 2020 to address the problem of overly short yellow times for motorists making left-hand or right-hand turns. An ITE panel concluded in September that a team of engineers who objected to the practice were right on the fundamental issue: drivers approaching an intersection to make a turn under certain conditions can neither safely stop nor legally proceed without risking an automated ticket.

The appeal of ITE yellow light timing standards was brought by a group of engineers that included an engineer who the Oregon Board of Engineers once infamously claimed wasn't an engineer.

The team that filed the appeal consisted of Oregon engineer Mats Jarlstrom, Safer Streets LA executive director Jay Beeber, North Carolina professional engineer Brian Ceccarelli, and the National Motorists Association's professional engineer Joe Bahen. The appeal used a physics model to prove mathematically that the ITE's current recommended practice dangerously shortchanged drivers making turns.

Jarlstrom was fined $500 by the Oregon Board of Engineers for practicing engineering without a license. Jarlstrom does, in fact, have an engineering degree. He's just not licensed by the state. The Board took this to mean it could tell Jarlstrom to stop presenting his red light camera research to public entities. A federal court disagreed and Jarlstrom obtained an official apology from the Licensing Board.

His criticisms of red light cameras (and the consequent shortening of yellow light times) were correct. ITE guidance allowed city engineers to shorten yellow times on left/right turn signals by approving a calculation that shaved 5 mph off the speed limit solely for the purpose of determining yellow light timing.

The research presented to ITE showed this made things much more dangerous for drivers approaching turning lanes during a yellow light. It created a "dilemma zone" where drivers were given two options, both of them bad: make an unsafe stop or get a ticket.

The "dilemma zone" is where cities using red light cameras make their money. Research cited by The Newspaper shows the majority of red light camera citations are issued to drivers who misjudged the end of a yellow light by less than 0.25 seconds.

ITE now appears to be distancing itself from camera-based enforcement efforts, something it has actively encouraged in the past. This is from a 2001 Congressional report on red light cameras that directly quotes ITE's guidance:

When the percentage of vehicles that entered on a red indication exceeds that which is locally acceptable, the yellow change interval may be lengthened (or shortened) until the percentage conforms to local standards, or enforcement can be used instead. (Page 5, emphasis added).

Cities and towns looking for more revenue have taken those standards to heart, shortening yellow times and increasing enforcement. Municipalities and red light camera companies made money while drivers absorbed the risk. Now, ITE's wording suggests the equation for yellow light timing shouldn't be used solely for the purpose of calibrating red light cameras for maximum profitability.

The Recommended Practice is not intended to declare, at a snap shot in time, if a vehicle “has violated the red signal” and the use of this document and red light running enforcement should be at best loosely connected. Change intervals should be developed using variables that reflect average people and vehicles.

The deployment of red light cameras directly correlates with shortened yellow light intervals. Driver safety is the sales pitch, but the real motivating force is the extra income. Increasing yellow light intervals from the ITE minimum does actually have a positive effect on driver safety, but it's hell on revenue streams. Here's how things changed in Georgia after the state mandated a one-second increase in yellow light intervals.

Suwanee was first to end ticketing on January 19 after issuing just 68 citations under lengthened yellow (the equivalent of 110 tickets per month). This compared unfavorably to the 2008 average of 580 tickets per month which helped the city land $414,540 in revenue. In Duluth, the program issued 652 tickets in October compared to 215 last month. As a result, Duluth will let its contract for the program -- which generated 10,386 tickets worth $727,020 last year -- expire in May. In Dalton, 122 tickets were issued at the intersection of Highway 41 and Shugart Road after the light was increased in January. The previous year, the number of monthly tickets averaged 460.

The ITE spent years nudging cities towards "enforcement," rather than safety. It's finally dialing that back and it took the work of outsiders to get it moving in the right direction. Hopefully, this guidance will be applied and red light camera companies will find themselves in the dustbin of history.

Filed Under: ite, mats jarlstrom, oregon, red light cameras, yellow light timing

Florida's Redlight Program Designed To Make Driving More Dangerous By Shortening Yellow Lights

from the putting-lives-in-danger dept

For years, we've been critics of red light cameras, which have been shown time and time again to actually increase accidents rather than decrease them -- which you would think should be the goal. Of course, we all know that's not really the goal. The goal has always been revenue generation for cities. If they actually wanted to increase safety there's a very simple way to do it: you increase the timing of yellow lights (and for the places, like where I live, that don't have an interval between when one direction turns red and the other turns green, you add that brief interval where all directions are red). Do that, and you increase safety and decrease accidents. And it's incredibly easy and cheap to do.

But, of course, various governments hate that idea, because it would decrease the massive revenue from red light camera fines. That's why over and over and over again, we see that various governments are caught redhanded lowering the time for yellow lights. Make no mistake about it: this increases the danger, and puts many more people at risk. Stupidly, it probably also could end up costing the city more in terms of having to respond to more accidents and deal with more injuries. But, boy, I'm sure it pumps up the revenue on red light camera violations.

The latest example of this comes via Darby Keene, who points out that the Florida Department of Transportation quietly tweaked its own standards for yellow light intervals in 2011, allowing them to be shorter without breaking the law (after many cities have been caught violating official standards). And, of course, various cities quickly did lower the interval timing. Yes, revenue at the expense of public safety. Research has shown that reducing the time of a yellow light by a mere half a second can double the number of red light camera citations -- and in some cases, the changes to FDOT's regulations meant cities reduced the length of a yellow light by an entire second. Smell that? It's the smell of revenue for cities, intermingled with wrecked cars and destroyed lives!

Even worse: while FDOT is claiming that it changed its regulations to clean up some wording, and not because of potential revenue, the report from WTSP, also found emails from FDOT engineers telling local government officials to lower their yellow light intervals to the absolute minimums allowed. That is, they weren't even saying it was just an option, they were being told to decrease the timing to make the intersection less safe, but more profitable.

And, while FDOT defended the whole thing claiming that they changed the policies to "match federal guidelines," the report explains that federal guidelines actually recommend longer yellow light times, just as we discussed above.

A USDOT/Federal Highway Administration (FHA) report said cities should not use speed limit in the yellow interval equation because it results "in more red light violations and higher crash rates." And if drivers' average speeds cannot be calculated, it's recommended engineers use the "speed limit plus 10 mph" variable to producing more conservative, and safer, yellow intervals.

Another report stresses the importance of using 85^th percentile speed to calculate yellow intervals, while slide 28 on this report indicates when yellow light times are lengthened, severe crashes drop.  

USDOT also recommends an extra half-second of yellow time at intersections with lots of trucks or elderly drivers to allow them to react safely. And despite the fact that Greater Tampa Bay is home to five of the nation's 12 oldest counties (by median age), it's also home to some of the shortest yellow lights.

Don't you feel safer now?

Filed Under: fdot, florida, red light cameras, yellow light timing