If you have, from prior experience, a particular expectation of the duration of a yellow light, and then the city intentionally shortens that time in order to give more tickets, it jeopardizes everyone’s safety. The explicit reason for traffic tickets is to make the roads safer by discouraging unsafe driving: cities who prioritize revenue over safety are abusing the whole system, and should absolutely be shut down.
Everyone knows that yellow has been morphed into meaning, "Speed up!" When really people should be stopping. They don't stop. They should stop.
And they should be punished for not stopping.
Round abouts, when first introduced cause more accidents in america as well. Doesn't mean they aren't better.
American drivers need to be taught that yellow means stop. In this case, the judge is teaching us, "Hey, run the light, if they catch you, maybe you can weasel your way out of the ticket by blaming the system."
I hear your points and i understand the little guy against the state perspective, but it's like blaming the highway patrol in the speed trap because he hid his car so you couldn't see it and slow down before he saw you. You were speeding and you should have gotten a ticket. In this case, people in fact, did run the red light and they should be punished for it because it is more dangerous to try to make it through. Most people don't make it through, even if the yellow is 4.4 seconds.
In my experience, yellow lights are different times in lots of different cities. When I see one, I slow down, i don't speed up. Unless it's raining and I know I'll lose traction. Then I just go through.
We exist in a world with others, not only ourselves. We need to live like it.
From the actual article linked to by the submitted post:
"Schwartz saw the error in the announcement timing as more than a technicality, citing the false assertion of Police Chief Paul Walters that motorists would be given 4.4 seconds of yellow time at enforced intersections. Records show that seventeen of the city’s eighteen camera intersections had yellow times of 4.0 seconds or less. The vast majority of red light tickets in the city were mailed to vehicle accused of entering an intersection less than half-a-second after the light had turned red."
And again, yellow doesn't mean stop. It means "stop if it's safe". If yellow meant unequivocally stop, then everyone would be slamming on the brakes - a recipe for accidents.
