romanojg

Virginia Beach was the first to get them, alot of them, then I think a few in Chesapeake and very few in Norfolk. It was challenged as being unconstutional or something so they stopped putting in new ones but the ones that were already in place are effective. I know lots of people that have gotten tickets in the mail.

The problem is that if that light changes yellow right before you get to it and there is a car on your tail end you stand the chance of getting rear ended or a ticket. I think for large intersections that have a problem its a good thing. Some of our intersections have 8 or more lanes when you consider both directions of traffic so there is a limited possibility of you making it thru all 8 lanes without being hit or causing an accident or hitting a pedestrian crossing.

cashs_mom

I'm not sure if we still have any here. The city council put them in without a vote. Then there was a big uproar so they were supposed to be taking them out. The problem with the traffic lights (besides the obvious that you are being ticketed without a real person seeing you do anything wrong) was that they actually increased the number of accidents because people would see them at the last minute, be afraid of getting a ticket because the light was turning and slam on their brakes to stop thus the car behind them would hit them. IMO they are nothing but another money grab. And the fact that they were run by a third party company who was profitting by per ticket doesn't much set right with me.

margied

My son got caught on yellow. You can play the video and he did - said he didn't think he was that far into the intersection. Pretty expensive. I'm glad I don't drive on LI much anymore!

lynnie

on one strip of the road about 5 miles from me, there are 4 cameras in a 1/4 mile stretch. it's terrible there, and lots of grid lock too. before these lights with cameras, there wasn't grid lock and everything went smoothly. Now it's a mess.

scorpius

They are awful and just another way municipalities legally get to take your hard earned money unjustly

Sadly they cause more accidents than they are suppose to prevent but as they make money for the towns hungry to fill gaps in their budgets it does not matter and "safety goes out the door"

quiltingcandy

They were taken out of the City of San Diego a few years ago, they did not generate the revenue the city planned, they caused more accidents than they prevented (based on prior stats) and some were so poorly timed they had to refund almost a million dollars in fines because of it. We never had them in Chula Vista, but there are other cities around that still have them. My daughter had a friend that worked for Cal Trans, in the department that reviewed the pictures too and very few people knew you could fight the cameras, once that was discovered it was when they were taken out. It was just too tempting on the part of the company to "fix" the lights because they got a commission on the tickets.

It takes a couple sharp attorneys to get them removed, they do the research and prove the problem, then a judge issues fines on the Municipality which in turn tries to get their money back and the cameras suddenly are no longer profitable, thus removed. I handled auto claims for 10 years and I am all for saving lives and preventing accidents, but they didn't work here. Maybe these new smart cars will do the trick.