Drivers: Beware of Pistol Packing Pedestrians! 2149

Alex Rodriguez

The issue at the intersection I'm most familiar with is that traffic stacks at it, and after people have sat through 2 light cycles they don't want to wait for a third. They've used the cameras with (as I posted elsewhere in the thread) almost every engineering concept I've heard of. There's extended yellows, countdown timers for pedestrians & drivers to know how much signal is left, dedicated turn lanes whereever they were able to fit them (though if they'd remove a Burger King they might be able to add one more, but it's the least used right turn anyway.)

There's already two left turn lanes in each direction, with dedicated turn arrows. Right turn lane from W-N, S-W, and E-S. N-E would require Burger King's parking lot.

The posted limit on the road is 40-50 mph the whole way, and traffic usually flows (when it is able to move smoothly) at about the speed limit, nobody seems to go much over cause it's one of the few speed limits that are set properly.

I also want to make it clear that if they'd just slapped a camera onto the intersection and called it fixed, I'd be peeed off. They first had rebuilt Mira Mesa Blvd from the RLC to I-15, improved Black Mountain (other street the RLC covers) with widening and light timing improvements, and replaced the signal lights themselves with larger more viasble ones.

Also, I understand some areas use them improperly to gain revenue, San Diego's old RLC provider played a lot of games, and I had a lot of issues with it. Since then the city has gotten a new contract with another company, leaving the city rather than the private business more in control. The city has been very, very open about the operation of these.

As you can see above, they already had tried a lot of things. The camera is simply one extra step they've taken in addition to timing the lights, extending yellows, improving the signage, adding the timers, etc.

Give me proof most drivers don't notice it. Several people who have visited from small east coast towns asked me about why the lights are red in all directions here.

What's the problem with using the camera in addition to the other solutions? Is it wrong to catch people who still choose to go through a red light at over 15 mph at least .5 seconds AFTER it went red?

Some points about the cameras used here, since you may not know:

- They are powered on by the light going red - They take over .5 seconds to power up and go active - They are not triggered under 15 mph - Every incident is reviewed by police to make sure it was a "real" run, and not someone stopping a foot past the line. Multiple pictures (& video at most intersections) are taken of each incident, and the driver's face must be clear in at least one of them.

It seems they're willing to give up a ton of revenue, if that was their real motive. To me the cameras are just another tool to improve the intersections time.

Maybe that intersection should have one also, but multi-vehicle accidents are rather rare at that intersection, for some reason. Probably the lower average speeds on the north-south street. (At least 10 mph slower.)

It seems like if this was aboue revenue that would be a "better" location.

Thank you, many people on usenet wouldn't be so generous.

The cops in San Diego rarely run speed traps. I drove 24,000 miles in the county last year and only saw 1. It was on a residential street (25 mph) that cars commonly would go 40+ on (to skip the RLC intersection, by coincidence.)

There's too many accidents and other incidents and too few police to have them run speed traps all the time. The freeways usually move about 75-80 mph anyway, and frequently people don't slow down even if there's a cop on the freeway near them. Just don't LLB them or you'll be pulled over in about 2 seconds.

I'm sure they hand out plenty of speeding tickets, but they don't need to waste time hiding in the bushes to do so. That's more San Luis Obispo's thing. Hell, if this city would focus on revenue even once in a while we wouldn't have had to underfund the city pension funds so badly.

Dave