Interesting.
My stopwatch says otherwise.
My local revenue enhancement officers (mayor and council) announced two red light camera installations with the usual blather about only safety.
Off I went, stopwatch and notebook in hand, to said intersections. In little time I had a lot of info on the sequence, timing and duration of the light cycles.
One installation was approved, and after completion, back was I, before and after the grace period.
The yellow light duration was not the only thing manipulated.
Light sequencing for time of day/directional density was altered to increase the total number of red lights presented to motorists in any one time period, and red lights were presented to through traffic packets when there were no cross traffic or pedestrians present to use the intersection.
The interesting thing about this last trick is that presenting a red to a group of motorists just to make them stop for no purpose is not outlawed or restricted. Additionally the mistiming of lights is the largest reason for red light infractions in this case.
Truth, honesty or consideration do not lie with the municipality, here.
The City I live in has about 900 intersections with traffic signals. The City does not have a traffic engineer to keep the computer in each one of them up to date. They hire private firms to do that.
They use type 170 controllers. In them there is room for up to 9 different timing plans. The minimum in almost all of them around here is 3 different plans (morning rush hour, evening rush hour, and all other times). Different plans mean different times for each color. Between each plan, there is also a transition built into the computer — and that also changes the color time. In addition, the timing for each light depends on the cars above the sensors in the pavement (or other types of monitors). There is a maximum and minimum time for each color in each direction, depending on the number of cars it senses.
It is entirely possible (theoretically) for EVERY SINGLE color in each direction to be a different stop-watch time during the day. There are about a dozen pages of printouts on the computer settings for each and every intersection that details how it is programmed. I assume that you took all of this into account when you stood nearby with your stopwatch.
Since the City does not have an engineer monitoring these around here, it is farmed out a private firms, including the one I work for. In a given working day, there are between a dozen and three-dozen changes made to timing. This is based on malfunctions, changes in traffic, new or widened streets nearby changing traffic patterns, new businesses that draw traffic, new housing developments, and new apartments. The traffic count is taken at about 300 intersections per year to get this information. Actually, the ITE recommends that traffic counts be taken yearly and the traffic light timing be reviewed and adjusted each year. It never gets done, but that is ideal, of course and that would cost 3 times the money.
In case you have not guessed by now, I will spell it out more plainly. Standing nearby with a stop-watch at one time and then comparing it with a different time will tell you absolutely nothing. You are spouting BS.
We don’t have Red-Light-cameras around here, yet. However, the only State Senator that was totally opposed to that was forced out by term limitations this year. I fully expect it to be authorized by the legislature next year.