Dallas Keeps Red Light Cameras, Right to Screw Up Your Credit

Kingston doesn't have a clue. I've lived in Dallas for almost 40 years, and I remember not that long ago, that you were taking your life in your hands if you entered an intersection when the light turned green. You'd better wait for all the red light runners to get through, before you proceeded. People didn't run the lights because they were psychopaths. They did it because they could get away with it. They were frustrated at having to wait so long to get through the intersection, and they felt they "deserved" to get through, regardless of whether or not the light just changed.

Two things changed this - more double-left turn lanes (which reduced the wait), and red light cameras (which gave consequences to their actions).

And one more thing - red light cameras don't "screw up your credit". Not paying the tickets you racked up is what will screw up your credit. It's called personal responsibility. But blaming the camera? Are you a four-year-old?

Just fight all the tickets saying you want to face your accuser (which is a camera). If that doesn't work just keep delaying the court date..you're sick....they will have to keep paying someone to sit and wait on you for nothing. Eventually if we all did that it would cost them more to keep them than to get rid of them. Bye bye revenue.

So the same people that are supporting/protecting the insane title loan companies in Dallas are also supporting running up the credit debt of poor people. Makes sense. At least there is consistency.

Kingston is wrong, although I appreciate his libertarian tendencies. I see people run red lights often. A yellow light seems to encourage many drivers to floor it no matter how far they are from the intersection. If there has been an increase of rear end collisions, and a decrease in T-Bone collisions, there have likely been fewer and less severe injuries as the result. These cameras don't effect me one bit, because I don't run red lights and don't tail gate the car ahead.

They need to design stop sign cameras if they really want to make money.

Roundabouts. Study after study has proven roundabouts increase traffic flow and decrease accidents...and they are CHEAP!

The problem is not traffic light cameras, the problem is the traffic lights. You can make an intersection safer, more efficient, and vastly less costly by removing lights and replacing them with 4-way stop signs. Any "traffic control" device that causes a driver to speed up through the intersection just add it's giving the go ahead to someone else, is a very, very bad design.

@dv8photo

Will that work with automated tickets as it (mostly) does with human officers? If so, why don't more people do that?

In possible answer of my own question, maybe it's because the scofflaws will scoff at even playing the game, while we law-abiding sheep just meekly pay the bill.

@TheRuddSki

Only for Exercise 37.B-1, "Shooting Pistol Surreptitiously and Left-Handed from Moving Vehicle." (lefty shooters love that exercise)

@ScottsMerkin yes, let's put cameras everywhere to stop bad people because I never do anything wrong, and that makes it okay.

@whocareswhatithink They terrify old people. The cranks and failures will come out of the woodwork over them. Watched it happen in Arlington.

@whocareswhatithink Roundabouts are the shit.

@d-may  Huh?  Have you ever driven before?  Ever come to a busy intersection when the lights are inoperative and it works as a 4-way stop?  Ever realize it takes 20 minutes to get through the intersection and everyone stares at each other awkwardly as they approach?  Yes, let's just replace all traffic lights in a major metropolitan area with 4-way stops.  Brilliant.  Please cut up your drivers license.

@ScottsMerkin @James080 

No, I conscientiously do not run red lights or stop signs. Ever. But I have paid a $75.00 red light fine, when my kid borrowed my car and blazed through an intersection 5-6 seconds after the light went red. They had the video on line to prove it, unless they faked it somehow. Car owner pay, which does suck.

@jesdynf @whocareswhatithink  "They terrify old people."

Good.  Most old people shouldn't drive anyway...

@umasspaulc @d-may That's because people are expecting one thing and getting another. This causes confusion and slows down traffic. Replace the light, and that confusion goes away in a few days  (also having the effect of dramatically reducing traffic accidents at the intersection, but who cares about safety). 

On the otherhand, have you ever sat at a red-light with no one using the intersection? Everyone sitting still while the light is green for a lane with no one in it. That happens at every light at every intersection every rotation. That doesn't happen at stop signs. That's inefficiency. 

@TheCredibleHulk @jesdynf @whocareswhatithink I wasn't even gonna bring /that/ up, but yes, they're all part of Obama's sinister Agenda 21.

@dmay1 @umasspaulc @d-may You have clearly never had to make a left turn on to Buckner after exiting 30 east. Or get on 30 east from Buckner going South.

@dmay1 @umasspaulc @d-may I disagree. 

First, people are notoriously bad about knowing who gets to proceed at a stop sign; they point at each other until somebody gets fed up and just goes. That process can take several seconds. And this is at intersections that have been stop signed for years.

Second, there is the time it takes for a car to get in gear, accelerate, and clear the intersection. At a normal stop light, once the line gets moving, it stays moving until the signal changes. At a stop sign, this happens for each individual direction of traffic for one line of cars at a time. It's inefficient.

Stop signs are not a solution.

@ScottsMerkin @James080 This is true. I recently sold a car to someone. They apparently never registered the title. I started getting red light tickets all over Plano. I never go to Plano. $275. Even though I sent paperwork to the state proving that I sold the car they still kept sending me notices. 

@Montemalone @Darren @dmay1 @umasspaulc @d-may Ever see what happens when you have a six lane road intersection with dual left turn lanes and a dedicated right turn lane.  Park and Preston is a real pucker up situation when the signal light fails.

@Montemalone 

That rule is day one driver's ed, yet so many people don't know.  

@RTGolden1 

I'll see your performance artists ("out of work" is usually redundant) and raise you...
mimes.

Mimes directing traffic would also reduce noise pollution, as well as (studies will show) blood pressure and social tension. 

@wcvemail @RTGolden1 Greatly increasing the vehicular manslaughter of mimes is appealing on the surface, sure, but the cleanup slows traffic and the paperwork is a nightmare.