Intersection Cameras - Page 2 - Writers Forum

starStuff · 07-07-2008, 07:08 PM

they are installing cameras at intersections in my city to catch people running red lights. though i've always wondered where they draw the line. I will blast through a yellow light if i know i have enough time before it turns red. I always watch the light as i pass under it and its usually still yellow when it disappears over my roof. I have to wonder though, if the camera might be at an angle to see it red and me in the intersection. I guess i'll find out if i get a ticket in the mail, but i feel that wouldn't be fair.

as far as the watching for accidents, i doubt it because that would require the cameras to be running all the time which would be expensive.

The Backward OX · 07-07-2008, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by starStuff

I have to wonder though, if the camera might be at an angle to see it red and me in the intersection. I guess i'll find out if i get a ticket in the mail, but i feel that wouldn't be fair.

There has to be a third element in this scenario besides the car and the camera. There has to be something triggering the camera. A camera-linked sensor in the road, that only functions once the light has turned red. This sensor would be so located that it's only activated by a car before it moves into the intersection.

So stop worrying.

If you get a ticket in the mail it means you've run a red light, pure and simple.

Either that, or you embark on some extensive, and expensive, research to establish that the city has erred in their construction of the whole goddamn thing, that the sensors are incorrectly located, and then you sue their ass off for wrongful summary conviction or whatever you might call it.

Just kidding.

*Or was I?*

AA · 07-07-2008, 08:35 PM

I know locally, if they give you a ticket for running a red light that they caught on camera (it's actually a citation, not a ticket by the way), then they also send you a URL, where you can see yourself running it in a small video clip. I think it's fun.

starStuff · 07-08-2008, 07:54 AM

lol that is fun. kinda like when you watch yourself on the news robbing a gas station...

oops, i didn't say that.

Olly Buckle · 07-09-2008, 03:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

Well, goodness gracious me.
I am familiar with this concept of yours of having two lights on together, from TV and whatnot, but had believed it to be green and amber rather than red and amber. Ok, so I'm wrong, again. But, pray tell, what earthly use would it be to any driver to see a red and an amber simultaneously? He's already stopped. He can't be any more stoppeded. Is its intent perhaps something like the double sets of lights that are now all the vogue at car-racing circuits, where the drivers sit riding their clutch with the handbrake on and the engine revving at about 5-6000 per, waiting for the lights to be extinguished?

Green means go
Amber means stop if it is safe to do so
Red means stop, you should be sitting there in neutral with the hand brake on.
Red and Amber means prepare to pull away, so clutch down, slip it in gear and put your thumb on the button of the hand brake, if you wish you can imagine you are a racing car driver, but remember to pull away smoothly.

I am reminded of my mates description of lights in Sidney, timed to allow you to drive straight through the town at thirty mph without stopping. But Aussie males being what they are every one guns it as soon as they change, speeds, and then has to stop for the next set.

Olly Buckle · 07-09-2008, 03:59 AM

Over here you are legal to continue if your back wheels have crossed the solid white line in front of the lights before they change to red, so no worries if you are half way across the junction and no need to gun it recklessly. also they only send you a photo, some cameras take video. I pulled into a parking bay at the wrong time to take a phone call and got a letter saying I was observed by camera operator no.28 and offering me a video, as well as the still, for a payment of £10 if I wanted to dispute it. It wasn't technically parking because I didn't switch off but I didn't dispute it because handling a phone whilst in control of a motor car (You don't have to be driving) is a much heavier fine and they put points on your licence.

The Backward OX · 07-09-2008, 06:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

Over here you are legal to continue if your back wheels have crossed the solid white line in front of the lights before they change to red, so no worries if you are half way across the junction and no need to gun it recklessly.

You'd need to be an aerial trapeze artist to be able to see your back wheels, surely? Out here in the colonies we're much less able to perform such contortions, so they paint the line in line with the light standard, and provided our front wheels are over it, it's good to go.

The Backward OX · 07-09-2008, 06:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

I am reminded of my mates description of lights in Sidney *gah* timed to allow you to drive straight through the town at thirty mph without stopping. But Aussie males being what they are every one guns it as soon as they change, speeds, and then has to stop for the next set.

I'm reminded of an (unintentional) achievement of mine from around 1990. Cab-driving in Brisbane. One morning around eight-ish I picked up this bird from the airport. She gave me a near-city destination. At a guess, maybe twelve, fifteen minutes at a steady speed. There were twenty-two sets of lights on that journey. I know because I counted them later. Six sets only were synchronised, the rest you simply took them as you found them. And I hit every single set on the green. Every single one of them. Twenty-two sets. All green. If they'd all been red I might have collected another three, four dollars on the meter, but I was so chuffed I undercharged the bird.

Mermaid on the breakwater · 07-09-2008, 07:26 AM

If I am out on my bike, it's cruise through on green, look out but gun it on amber and hammer it on red and keep your eyes closed just in case there's a car pulling out.

If you time it just right, you should hear somebody blasting on their horn about 10 - 20 metres behind you. Any closer than that and you know you've just cut somebody up.

The Backward OX · 07-09-2008, 09:01 AM

Here’s a cool trick if you’re on four wheels and someone going the same way gives you aggro.

Organise yourself to be in the same lane and riding point on this guy. In other words, you’re in front of him. Keep him penned behind you. Eventually, God willing, you’ll come to a red light. Doesn’t matter if you’re on pole, or two or even three cars back. On the green, you just sit there. And sit. And sit. Mr Nasty starts blowing his horn. You do nothing. But you get ready to move. When the amber/yellow comes on, you give it two seconds, then gun it through the intersection.

And who’s left sitting there, like a shag on a rock?

Mermaid on the breakwater · 07-09-2008, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

Here’s a cool trick if you’re on four wheels and someone going the same way gives you aggro.

Organise yourself to be in the same lane and riding point on this guy. In other words, you’re in front of him. Keep him penned behind you. Eventually, God willing, you’ll come to a red light. Doesn’t matter if you’re on pole, or two or even three cars back. On the green, you just sit there. And sit. And sit. Mr Nasty starts blowing his horn. You do nothing. But you get ready to move. When the amber/yellow comes on, you give it two seconds, then gun it through the intersection.

And who’s left sitting there, like a shag on a rock?

Ox, you've got to be careful, my love, somebody might decide to follow you despite the red and then I'll be without my oxy poo.

Olly Buckle · 07-09-2008, 06:49 PM

on the other hand if someone is being an arsehole and you behave decently towards them the chances of their driving improving goes up dramatically, you can even see it when there is a queue of cars and someone driving on your back bumper, leave a decent gap without missing opportunities and looking like a useless idiot and the chances are that they drop back abit within half a mile or so. If they don't slam it in second or third and put the handbrake on hard just when he expects you to accelerate. (this is a joke in poor taste, don't try it for real).

The Backward OX · 07-09-2008, 07:04 PM

Reminds me of anothery.

Back in the sixties now. There was this saloon/touring car driver (never sure what you call them over there) who had this evil habit of disconnecting his brake lights. Following drivers who would use another's lights to gauge their own braking point would get sucked right into a corner before they realised, then finish up all over the shop like a mad woman's muck. Of course if my mate ran a place he had to remember to hook them up again before the stewards checked him over.