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I don't have links at my finger tips for all of these.

Effectiveness of Red Light Cameras in Chicago: An Exploratory Analysis, by Rajiv C. Shah University of Illinois at Chicago, June 17, 2010

Mr. Shah found some interesting things. The City of Chicago claimed that accidents across the city went down 21% after RLCs were installed. Mr. Rajiv found this was true. What was also true, that the city did not mention, is that total miles driven in Chicago went down by about the same amount; the accident RATE did not vary much at all. IOW, very unlikely that RLCs had anything to do with the decrease, rather less driving = less accidents. (This finding that accident rates go up at RLC intersections has been replicated in other cities).

Mr. Shah also looked at accidents at RLC interesections. Drawing on Illinois Dept of Transportation data for 50 intersections, he found that when comparing the number of accidents at those intersections one year prior to installation vs one year after installation, the total number went UP, not down. Not by a huge amount, but still, not an indicator that RLCs reduce accidents.
Mr. Shah also looked at a study the city itself did comparing a control group of 20 non-RLC intersections to 20 intersections with RLCs. Interestingly, he and the ACLU had to press FOIA suits to get the study. When he got it, he eliminated half of each group because those intersections did not have a full year's date. Of the remaining 10 controls and 10 RLCs, both showed decreases in accidents. The rate for RLCs was only 1.5% greater than the group without RLCs.

Unfortunately, Mr. Shah did not provide any information on the revenue part of the question.



The Tennessee Policy Center, in Policy Brief No. 04-08, noted that there were no discernible reductions in accidents at intersections in Tennessee where RLCs had been installed, but revenues had skyrocketed. They noted that some cities had been apparently caught tinkering with yellow light times, or at least not ensuring that they met the minimum time required. Interestingly, they note that increasing yellow light time by one second has been shown to reduce accidents up to 40%, and several cities that did so saw RLC violations plummet. However, increasing the yellow light time is inexpensive, easy, and brings no revenue to the city....

Safety Evaluation of Red-Light Cameras, by the Federal Highway Administration, concluded that RLCs reduce right-angle (Tbone) collisions, but increase rear-end collisions

AN EVALUATION OF RED LIGHT CAMERA (PHOTO-RED) ENFORCEMENT PROGRAMS IN VIRGINIA: A REPORT IN RESPONSE TO A REQUEST BY VIRGINIA’S SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION made a case, after studying seven systems in Virginia, that RLCs had potential to increase safety -- but not only did the number of accidents at RLC intersections increase, the number of injury-producing crashes had increased also.

There are more studies like this out there, but I have to go to my VFD meeting.

RLCs are about revenue, not safety.

Oldgringo wrote:

jordanmills wrote:Yeah, but some of the suburbs still have them. League City, for example. Don't forget to put pressure on your state reps to ban them statewide.

Why? Running a red light is not only dangerously illegal, it's also rude.

Because redlight cameras are about revenue, not running redlights.