Hey Guest!
Hey - did you know if you click on the title of a thread it will take you to the first unread post since you last visited that thread?
but were afraid to ask: 
STOP!! Never post your email address in open forums. Bots can "harvest" your email! If you must share your email use a Private Message or use the 
smilie in place of the real @
Pretty Please - add it to our Events forum(s) and add to the calendar! >> 
JamesWilson
Yoda
Offline
I could not agree more: tailgating and inattention are the causes, but that is NOT the issue. You seem to almost purposefully misunderstand the issues and the argument.
The issue is whether instituting an enforcement method that increases a particular kind of damage consequent from that behaviour can be justified.
Studies have found that installing red-light cameras DO in fact lead to an increase in rear-end accidents:
https://www.pages.drexel.edu/~tnh28/Traffic Light Cameras.ppt#256,1,Traffic Light Cameras
https://www.leftlanenews.com/study-finds-red-light-cameras-could-actually-cause-more-accidents.html
https://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=4936
https://www.clickpress.com/releases/Detailed/82005cp.shtml
and there are numerous others to be easily found Googling....
This is a natural consequence of changing the behaviour of drivers with a stricter enforcement regime.
The public safety counter-argument is that these increased rear-end accidents are more than offset by a reduction in higher speed "T" accidents.
Lights do not cause either kind of accident, mis-behaving people do.
The point to which I was responding was made by the poster earlier was that the "government policy" that underlay the installation of these cameras was at FAULT and they should not be deployed where the consequence was any increase in accidents of any severity.
The facts seem clear: where these cameras are used to enforce laws there will be more accidents- irrespective of the fact that the rear-ender can unambiguously be faulted for their behaviour. Just as those that run a light and cause an accident can unambiguously be faulted for that behaviour.
The issue is choosing the enforcement policy that causes the least damage that results from law breaking.
I'm not arguing that the traffic light "caused" an accident- accidents will happen because people run lights and tailgate both, and the light causes neither. But if the light is to be enforced, then the SAFEST enforcement regime should be followed, knowing full well that some number of people will be lawbreakers, and also knowing full well that the incidence of accidents of one kind will increase and that others ought to decrease.
There's a fair amount of evidence that cameras are frequently installed to generate revenue rather than out of public safety concerns, and I think that poses significant moral issues: how much municipal revenue is justified by the predictable property damage, personal injury and even death to both rear-enders and rear-endees?
Of course, one of the recommended alternatives to such cameras is the proposal to lengthen the duration of the "yellow" lights, allowing more time for intersections (and red-light-runners) to clear. But a cynic such as I would counter by observing that light-running scoff-laws would then be even worse behaved and run lights even later to take advantage of having "more" time....
The issue is whether instituting an enforcement method that increases a particular kind of damage consequent from that behaviour can be justified.
Studies have found that installing red-light cameras DO in fact lead to an increase in rear-end accidents:
https://www.pages.drexel.edu/~tnh28/Traffic Light Cameras.ppt#256,1,Traffic Light Cameras
https://www.leftlanenews.com/study-finds-red-light-cameras-could-actually-cause-more-accidents.html
https://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=4936
https://www.clickpress.com/releases/Detailed/82005cp.shtml
and there are numerous others to be easily found Googling....
This is a natural consequence of changing the behaviour of drivers with a stricter enforcement regime.
The public safety counter-argument is that these increased rear-end accidents are more than offset by a reduction in higher speed "T" accidents.
Lights do not cause either kind of accident, mis-behaving people do.
The point to which I was responding was made by the poster earlier was that the "government policy" that underlay the installation of these cameras was at FAULT and they should not be deployed where the consequence was any increase in accidents of any severity.
The facts seem clear: where these cameras are used to enforce laws there will be more accidents- irrespective of the fact that the rear-ender can unambiguously be faulted for their behaviour. Just as those that run a light and cause an accident can unambiguously be faulted for that behaviour.
The issue is choosing the enforcement policy that causes the least damage that results from law breaking.
I'm not arguing that the traffic light "caused" an accident- accidents will happen because people run lights and tailgate both, and the light causes neither. But if the light is to be enforced, then the SAFEST enforcement regime should be followed, knowing full well that some number of people will be lawbreakers, and also knowing full well that the incidence of accidents of one kind will increase and that others ought to decrease.
There's a fair amount of evidence that cameras are frequently installed to generate revenue rather than out of public safety concerns, and I think that poses significant moral issues: how much municipal revenue is justified by the predictable property damage, personal injury and even death to both rear-enders and rear-endees?
Of course, one of the recommended alternatives to such cameras is the proposal to lengthen the duration of the "yellow" lights, allowing more time for intersections (and red-light-runners) to clear. But a cynic such as I would counter by observing that light-running scoff-laws would then be even worse behaved and run lights even later to take advantage of having "more" time....
