[geeks] Stuff fo' sale

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Sat, 12 Aug 2006 @ 17:57 +0100, Mike Meredith said:

> > That's just the first instance I found, and while DC is the worst
> > (they nearly always shorten the yellow to boost profits) they are not
> 
> I guess that US rules on 'yellow' (we call it 'amber') are somewhat
> different to the UK rules, because 'stop unless you're too close to the
> line to stop safely' is unlikely to result in greater profits if you cut
> the time on amber. 

Huh?

If you shorten yellow, you *WILL* increase the number of people caught
by the red light, and not because they did anything wrong.  Yellow time
has to allow for a safe stop at full speed, and a lot of cities have
reduced yellow time below that.

> Of course 'increase speed to avoid getting stopped by
> a red' as commonly practised would tend to increase profits.

I never do that, but I do get caught in the red when a yellow comes on
and then goes to red before I could possibly stop at several key
intersections.

> Time to fire some politicians rather than throwing away a method that
> could improve road safety. Of course I'm in favour of causing
> politicians pain so I guess you can disregard my comments as prejudiced
> :)

Road cameras, even working perfectly, do not increase safety anywhere
near as much as other more beneficial improvements. 

What we need is to focus on what is most necessary.  If you do that,
you'll find road cameras are very far down on the list.

If you sort by revenue, only then does it become a priority item.


-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["I wish life was not so short. Languages
take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about." - J.
R. R. Tolkien]