No amount of drivers ed and giving people tickets will stop people from running fresh reds, even accidentally. The only things that help with the consequences is making people understand this, raising intersections, and longer all red periods.
No-one runs a red accidentally except through inattention. Whichever it is, it’s an attitude incompatible with driving. Those people need to be removed from behind the wheel.
Anyone should be able to stop their vehicle within 2 seconds. For an emergency, that is generous. For a traffic light, that is quick - but it is easily achievable for exactly the same reason. And, because you can see the green light, you are able to anticipate it changing, and so react quicker than you would to an unanticipated event like an emergency, so it is easier still.
Amber light timings in my country are, I believe, 3 seconds universally.
I think we’re mostly in agreement about a lot of this stuff. A lot of drivers here don’t drive defensively, and that is a problem. Clearly it’s a problem everywhere and it’s much more reasonable for drivers to expect red light runs especially on fresh reds than to expect every driver to never run a red light ever, especially at high speeds when checking to see if someone is going to run the very much non-fresh red on the conflicting direction.
My main point is that “red light running” is purely a distinction based on the state of the LEDs. It’s dishonest to make a meaningful distinction between someone entering an intersection on a yellow vs a very fresh red. Especially compared to someone on their phone who blows into a full intersection of cars on a non-fresh red which is what’s actually dangerous (because of the people there with right of way).
I live in Phoenix which is apparently the red light running Capitol of the country. It’s gotten a lot better now that Phoenix and other cities have extended their yellow light timings and red only periods. As it turns out not all red light runs are equal.
If you slam on the brakes at high speeds on a modern car, you will stop in much less than 2 seconds. In practice you need some time to react as well, but the time to react to an anticipated event is short and should be about a quarter of a second.
The “state of the LEDs” that you keep referring to is the signal that tells other drivers they may proceed. Stop minimising it.
So time to react is a quarter second, meaning the driver isnt allowed to look at anything but the traffic light when approaching one? Sounds dangerous.
No amount of drivers ed and giving people tickets will stop people from running fresh reds, even accidentally. The only things that help with the consequences is making people understand this, raising intersections, and longer all red periods.
No-one runs a red accidentally except through inattention. Whichever it is, it’s an attitude incompatible with driving. Those people need to be removed from behind the wheel.
You really haven’t seen some light timings. Lots of cities make yellow lights really short.
How short?
It depends. Some are 2 or 3 seconds. It’s mainly to get revenue for the police department via red light running tickets.
Anyone should be able to stop their vehicle within 2 seconds. For an emergency, that is generous. For a traffic light, that is quick - but it is easily achievable for exactly the same reason. And, because you can see the green light, you are able to anticipate it changing, and so react quicker than you would to an unanticipated event like an emergency, so it is easier still.
Amber light timings in my country are, I believe, 3 seconds universally.
In the U.S. speed limits are high enough where stopping within 2 seconds (including reaction time) would require slamming on the breaks.
Also yellow lights should not be a static time. See https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kyFLRXSxgPw
I think we’re mostly in agreement about a lot of this stuff. A lot of drivers here don’t drive defensively, and that is a problem. Clearly it’s a problem everywhere and it’s much more reasonable for drivers to expect red light runs especially on fresh reds than to expect every driver to never run a red light ever, especially at high speeds when checking to see if someone is going to run the very much non-fresh red on the conflicting direction.
My main point is that “red light running” is purely a distinction based on the state of the LEDs. It’s dishonest to make a meaningful distinction between someone entering an intersection on a yellow vs a very fresh red. Especially compared to someone on their phone who blows into a full intersection of cars on a non-fresh red which is what’s actually dangerous (because of the people there with right of way).
I live in Phoenix which is apparently the red light running Capitol of the country. It’s gotten a lot better now that Phoenix and other cities have extended their yellow light timings and red only periods. As it turns out not all red light runs are equal.
If you slam on the brakes at high speeds on a modern car, you will stop in much less than 2 seconds. In practice you need some time to react as well, but the time to react to an anticipated event is short and should be about a quarter of a second.
The “state of the LEDs” that you keep referring to is the signal that tells other drivers they may proceed. Stop minimising it.
I agree that red light running leads to deadly collisions. However that’s not the whole picture. You have to have nuance.
So time to react is a quarter second, meaning the driver isnt allowed to look at anything but the traffic light when approaching one? Sounds dangerous.
What country are you from?
Not relevant to this discussion. You can google to determine that such countries exist, if that’s what worries you. Or just not believe me.