Messing with yellows for more local cash?

Another local community is looking at the feasibility of installing red-light cameras. While I do not oppose making intersections safer, the installation of red-light cameras can make them more dangerous.

How? The company that installs the camera does so for a cut of the tickets paid. In order to increase their revenue they may elect, as they have in other communities, to shorten the time the yellow light stays on. Each reduction in the time the yellow is displayed has a corresponding increase in revenue collected. And it has a corresponding increase in the number of rear-end collisions that occur.

Face it, if you have been driving one day or 30 years and are used to a four-second yellow and that yellow is suddenly two seconds, you are either going to risk the ticket or you will stop unnaturally fast. If the person behind does not react, a crash happens.

If we install red-light cameras in the area, do what some locals have done and do a better job of synchronizing traffic lights. Furthermore, do not shorten the time the yellow is displayed. In fact, some communities, including San Diego, have lengthened the yellow lights.

Alan Davis

St. Charles