>>with a speed camera you can argue that it has no discretion for when a reasonable increase in speed is acceptable (albeit still illegal)...e.g 0500 sunny sunday morning in the summer
>>but with a traffic light camera I can't see any circs when the general public should be pushing the limit with them, so there's no problem having them there is there? Emergency services will be exempt.
I don't see the difference. Breaking a speed limit or disobeying a red light are both traffic offences. It could, no doubt, be argued by some gung-ho type drivers, that going through a red light is accaeptable if there's no other traffic about!!!
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What are these people on about? How could anyone say nipping through a traffic light on red was ok? "Getting caught out"? My goodness people like that shouldn't be on the roads.
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"Diddums" is the word that comes to mind here.
A red light is a red light is a red light. It's the one that comes after amber, stoopid! They're big lights, standard size, housed in a regulation frame, usually black. For the colour blind amongst us, it's the one at the top. For the partially sighted amongst us - stop driving immediately. For the motorist who was going too fast/drugged/drunk to stop - don't. Shooting a red light carries a high risk of an accident, injuries and death every time.
Red light cameras are there to discourage and/or catch people doing something very, very naughty. Same as store detectives, undercover police officers, burglar alarms, spiked railings, barbed wire and some but not all CCTV cameras.
Speed cameras are a different matter as speed limits are forever going down and, erm, down, and the lack of signposting (i.e. remove a 40 sign and it's a 30 limit by default) catches law abiding people unawares. The border guards of (insert volatile desert state of your choice) may well shoot at a car crossing the border without stopping, but it ain't fair if the border's just been moved, is it?
Look on red light cameras as "fines for shoplifting" and speed cameras as "bank charges".
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Bilboman - pity cyclists won't listen to what you say. (I agree with your every word by the way). But there again, how many traffic light / speed cameras monitor what's happening on the pavement.....................
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>>with a speed camera you can argue that it has no discretion for when a reasonable increase in speed is acceptable
When are people going to get the message - driving above the speed limit IS NOT acceptable and you do it at your own risk.
Don't grumble if you get caught, it is your choice to be an easy target.
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Mr Rock, a delivery driver who uses the road every day, added: "It shouldn't be hidden. They're trying to make victims out of motorists."
Hahahahaha white van man whining about a red light camera. The 'victims' are the drivers going through green who have to avoid people like him.
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I got done by one at the Angel junction, following a friend's car. Went through squarely into the red, half a second or so, perfectly safely of course, but saw the flashes and thought, oo-er. Bang to rights, and paid up and took my thumbmarked licence with a curse and otherwise as good a grace as I could muster.
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Lud, it might have been just as well that you weren't driving in Victoria, Australia in the 1990's [ and maybe it is still the same] if you thing that half a second into the red is cutting it a bit fine. Light-controlled intersections had a 4-second phase when all lights were red. According to the bureaucrats, that would ensure a clear intersection before the "other" road started. Yeah Right !!! The Aussie drivers soon began banking on the all-red phase to howl through. When I told ny Australian nephew who was going on holiday in New Zealand that we had no all-red phase, he was somewhat shocked, and said words to the effect of " How quaint" { in best Aussie of course.}
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Tell me about it Gary.
In the sixties in Marylebone road in a hired Herald, I was coming up the outside lane to a red light. As I approached it turned green, so I accelerated as the traffic in the other two lanes moved off. As I got to the front of the vehicle in the next lane, a coach, it stopped. I was out in front of it by then and couldn't accelerate out of the way of the Triumph 2000 coming across well into the red. He hit the Herald behind the rear wheel arch and spun it 180 degrees - the road was wet - without other harm. He said he had 'just come in off the M1'.
The hire company asked laconically if I needed another car. I didn't. The Herald was dented but drove normally.
However my red light infraction at the Angel a year or two back alarmed no one and endangered nothing except my wallet and licence.
Edited by Lud on 29/11/2007 at 20:46
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> When are people going to get the message - driving above the speed limit ISNOT acceptable and you do it at your own risk.
there are times when it is more than acceptable to break a speed limit, if by the definition of acceptable you're using considerations of potential danger, rather than pure legality.... an example would be a 20mph limit outside a school, when it is the school holidays, bright sun light and 5 o'clock in the morning
there are not many times when going through a red light is acceptable, although i'd admit there are some... e.g. when they're stuck on red and the only alternative is to grow old in your car
those people that automatically insist it is dangerous to drive in the first set of circs above, at say 25mph, are simpletons.......it's as straightforward as that.........have a think about it for a minute, use your own thought processes rather than slavish reliance on someone else's.... (who may well have got it wrong, or at the very least is prepared to set an incredibly low limit to cover a particular problem, which more often than not isn't there).
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I'm all in favour of red light cameras, concealed or not.
There seems to be , in the South East at least, an increasing tendency for them to be ignored.
Crossing any light on red is a dangerous pursuit , as in the infamous case of a local to me Police car driver at Gatwick last year who caused a major accident resulting in the death of a lady. This was the subject of a long thread on this site.
I have to add that the only blot on my licence in forty years was 'failing to comply with a traffic signal' in 1969 . I'm not proud of it and it still rankles.
I quote Jo Brand re Traffic Lights in London..
Green means go....
Amber means go...
Red means ... oh pink fluffy dice it , just another three cars then...
Edited by Webmaster on 04/12/2007 at 01:00
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To suggest that going throug a red light equates to breaking the speed limit is, IMHO, ridiculous.
Speed limits are rarely related to safety, but a combination of issues as adjudged by people with little more qualification for limit-setting than "the saloon-bar bore". Some are set for noise reducing reasons, others for safety, most simply to control what we do, but there is no margin for conditions or the type of vehicle.
Like larger vehicles ability to ignore speed bumps, because cameras set the same limit on a suburban road at 2 a.m. as at 8.30 pre-school, and because most rightly go with the traffic flow, likely to be clsoe to the limit, one can be done for breaching...what? Some local council's fund-raising, I'm in control of your life, pedant who cannot be bothered to understand the real cause of accidents, or indeed sees it as his duty to save ourselves, or worse "the planet". Ha Blinking ha!
PS I have nil points on my licence and have never been done for speeding and almost never break the limits.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 29/11/2007 at 12:35
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Much as I generally disagree with the 'benefits' of 'safety' cameras I tend to agree with the comments in this thread for this red light camera.
Going through a red light is dangerous on a main road like that so being caught by the camera is the least of your (or anyone else in the vicintys) worries!
The only thing I don't like about red light cameras is that they make a lot of drivers perform an emergency stop even when they can legally and safely pass through the amber signal (i.e it turns amber as they are almost on line with the traffic lights)
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Personally I think it should be visible, otherwise it can't act as a deterrent. What's the safety benefit of sending someone who goes through a red-light a ticket two weeks later instead of preventing them from doing it in the first place?
I don't run red-lights, but the cameras make me nervous because you don't know how long it is 'till the yellow turns red. I know that yellow means 'stop, as long as it's safe to do so' , but there's always a nagging doubt that when the lights turn yellow and I have to continue through because it's dangerous to stop, I might get snapped because the lights turn red while I'm part-way across the junction.
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I wish one was installed at a set of lights I've just been through. Waiting at a red to turn right across a dual carriageway. Not busy on dual carriageway, one car approaching and slows as his lights turn red. In outside lane is a car approaching, but not slowing down.
I get a green and keep an eye on the car, inside lane car had stopped. I begin to move forward to see if he stops, but no just sails through. A blast of the horn resulted in driver looking across as if to say 'whats wrong?' and not in an angry way either, like he was in a dream world - a drink and drugs test may have revealed an interesting result.
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