The certain areas in State of Florida use the red light cameras. In fact, there is a class action lawsuit currently pending.
The communities see red light cameras as a revenue producer. However , 70% of revenue goes to the camera company; 30% to the community.
The integrity of the camera system depends on the timeing and calibration of the system.
In St Petersburg area , they found that the yellow light timeing was shortened by 1/2 second by the company , and thus the length of the time was shortened ,
and in violation of Florida Dept. of Transportation standardized guidelines for traffic lights.
Florida officials found an increase in the number of “rear-end collisions” caused by drivers not willing to risk going into intersections
when they thought they would be photographed, even though legally elligible to continue through the intersection .
Right now , many communities are now taking the cameras out of use since they are considered now as a traffic hazzard.
It’s even worse. Most of the tickets generated by these cameras are not people “running red lights”. Rather, it is people taking a free right on a red, but failing to come to a complete stop “with rollback”. A person could inch forward for several feet and finally go when the traffic is clear and because they never came to a complete stop they will get a ticket in the mail.
In California, these tickets are over $400.
In Chicago, over 90% of the tickets written at some of the cameras are for these “rolling free rights”. And at one camera, 100% of them are for this. This move is not a traffic hazard.