Interesting. I frequently stop people for orange lights who tel me they couldn't stop because the car behind them was too close. Trouble was, I was watching and there either wasn't a car behind them at all, or it was a long way back.Originally Posted by McJim
You also mentioned revenue targets. Let me tell you that if it was about revenue we'd be doing a lot of things that target easier revenue. We'd be sitting outside schools to get the $400 for restricted licence breaches. We'd be enforcing the lane driving, there is so much crap lane driving that would be a an easier revenue maker then staking out a set of traffic lights.
In terms of borderline cases, we don't even go there. We only deal with those who could have stopped easily within the time given. It makes me laugh when someone is stationary behind a limit line (the white line), waiting for a light to change. When it goes yellow they accelerate to use the yellow phase as a turning phase. We stop them and they argue that they couldn't stop. WHAT ? They WERE stopped, they accelerated after the light changed.
The most exciting red light I ever had to enforce was K Rd and Upper Queen Street. The intersection has long since been redesigned. We used to have to sit on the South West corner, watching the lights for traffic coming up the hill from Upper Queen St. They crash the red, then we'd have to get the R80RT lights and sirens going and get across the red light before the K Rd traffic headed off. It was a rush, and thank God none of us ever came to grief. The intersection was re-engineered, and the problem moved.
WE base our targeting on the speed, length of yellow phase, and distance the vehicle is into the intersection when the light goes red. If the vehicle is only a car length (3 to 4 metres) across the limit lines when the light goes red, at 50 km/h they were maybe 50 metres back when the light went yellow. To argue they couldn't have stopped is complete tosh. All the intersections in Christchurch that we deal with, we have a minimum 4 second yellow before red. One exception is Pilgrim Place, where the yellow light is only 3 seconds. That's due to Pilgrim PLace beinmg very short, and nobody getting up to more than 30 - 40 before the lights.
Last point; lots of people will tell you they are good drivers. Then they do stupid things in their cars, and ask you to believe their driving skill was insufficient for them to comply with the law.
Yellow light laws aren't new. But our focus on them is.
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