Red Light Cameras Cutting Down on Crashes

Nearly 40,000 drivers a year are caught running red lights in Raleigh and Cary.

At intersections with cameras, however, police find that drivers are doing better at obeying the law.

In Cary, traffic cameras catch close calls on tape along with blatant violations and routine ones. Police say the cameras—and the fact that people know about them—have helped reduce the number of wrecks.

“During the first year a red light camera is in operation, you will have a slight increase in rear-end collisions, but then that levels off and goes back down to the old levels before the camera went in,” said Chris Davis of the Cary Police Department.

The big benefit comes when the number of T-bone crashes goes down, reducing serious injuries and deaths.

Cary police have found that they are writing fewer citations for light violations at the camera intersections than they wrote before the new technology was installed.

In Raleigh, too, police report that serious wrecks and citations are down at all 13 of their red light camera locations.

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And just so you know philsinit4fun@yahoo.com there is a big difference between public and private. As the Supreme Court (that's the big white building where they decide the constitutionality of laws) said "What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection" Katz v. United States, 389 US 347, 351 (1967).

walkermr
December 20, 2006 3:22 p.m.

But then again, there's no research out that shows they work. Except from the companies that sell them.

Yeah, right.

walkermr
December 20, 2006 3:10 p.m.

But then again, there's no research out that shows they work. Except from the companies that sell them.

Yeah, right.

walkermr
December 20, 2006 3:10 p.m.

The authors concluded that the economic costs from the increase in rear-end crashes were more than offset by the economic benefits from the decrease in right-angle crashes targeted by red light cameras. Not all studies have reported increases in rear-end crashes. The Cochrane Collaboration (an international organization that conducts systematic reviews of the scientific literature on public health issues) recently reviewed 10 controlled before-after studies of red light camera effectiveness in Australia, Singapore, and the United States.9 The authors reported a 16 percent reduction in all types of injury crashes and a 24 percent reduction in right-angle crashes. The review did not find a statistically significant change in rear-end crashes.

walkermr
December 20, 2006 3:09 p.m.