It seems pretty messed up to suggest that we shouldn’t enforce people not blowing through red lights because then they’ll slam on their brakes and cause rear end accidents instead.
The problem isn't the red-light camera itself, it is that whoever installs/manages them also reduces the time of the yellow-light warning, so the red light comes on significantly sooner. The normal yellow light timing is a properly studied and engineered interval based on traffic and speed to give drivers sufficient warning to see, decide, and go or slow-stop in a safe and predictable fashion.
When the red-light-camera installers/managers decide to cut that time to increase infractions and increase revenue, they create situations where drivers think they are going to make it to the intersection in good time, but are surprised by the sooner-changing red light, so emergency-brake before the line. This causes accidents, including accidents where the car is pushed into the intersection and causes a rear-end then T-bone.
This invalid yellow-red light timing was revealed in some lawsuits about it.
I think the right solution is to maintain properly engineered timing, install cameras that also trigger a full video from multiple angles, and manually evaluate each positive and ticket only the egregious ones and have records of the violators who caused accidents.
But since the easy money is evidently too much of a temptation to fck with people, ban them all.
We already ban the thing that is being abused — running red lights. Yet people do it with deadly results so much we're looking for another solution.
With the cameras, the camera salespeople and the town managers just can't get away from "It increases revenue (and if we screw with the yellow-light-timing we can increase it even more!".
I'd be all over making any town manager and red-light-camera-salesperson involved in a decision to screw with the red lights personally and criminally liable for any accidents resulting from screwing with yellow-light timing, and requiring all timing before installation to be officially logged, but they'll try to find ways around that too. And then there is the whole surveillance capitalism thing — we've got the cameras, why not record all license plates, and tie them to driver license and voting records, and, and, and...
What is the least-worst thing to do?
While running the red light is still dangerous, running it as soon as it turns red is unlikely to cause an accident. It's still ticketable, and if a cop sees it happen, they should make a stop and issue a ticket.
If you are distracted, or time the yellow light badly, and you have to make a decision on whether to lay on the horn and run the red light as soon as it changes, or slam your brakes and try to avoid running through the intersection, you're already in a position where you're going to have to commit a moving violation, and you don't need the threat of automatic monetary penalties guiding your judgement on which move to make.
There are situations where slamming the brakes creates a more serious hazard than running the red light, but the red light cameras only ticket you for running the red light. Why create an artificial preference for one hazard over the other, rather than trust the driver to drive defensively in these situations?
The cameras don't even need to go away; they just need a human in the loop to apply these tickets rationally. Maybe don't ticket the driver who barely missed yellow, but do ticket the driver who blew through the red with zero regard for the rules. Make sure these rules are understood by drivers, so that they don't fear automatic enforcement more than they do bodily harm to themselves and others, but still think twice about ignoring the rules of the road.
