Red light cameras are good. Minimal bias (fn) compared to an all-too-human police officer.
And it's not like speed traps, where the posted limits are well below the design speed of the road. A red light is a red light!
fn: We can argue the toss around discriminatory placement of cameras e.g. there's probably more of them in neighbourhoods with certain demographics, but there's a simple solution here: every signalised intersection getting a camera, or at least the top half by traffic volume.
There's enough people talking about the timing of the yellow to sort of pause and consider whether a given red light is exactly the same as some other red light.
If places are shortening the yellow light to juice camera revenue then yes, that's bad.
America is the land of the lawsuit right? Surely someone - or the state legislature - could take action on safety grounds alone to ensure a reasonable minimum duration (adjusted for the speed limit) for a yellow light.
Do you have evidence that they conclusively reduce traffic incidents?
I think the thing I get hung up on is that I don't know if we know they actually work. Intuitively, sure, makes sense, but maybe they are just costing drivers money but not making things safer.
And it's not like speed traps, where the posted limits are well below the design speed of the road. A red light is a red light!
fn: We can argue the toss around discriminatory placement of cameras e.g. there's probably more of them in neighbourhoods with certain demographics, but there's a simple solution here: every signalised intersection getting a camera, or at least the top half by traffic volume.