PSY 409a, December 3, 2005

My Tenth Outline of Assigned Readings

By Karis Amano

Red-Light Running

Rothe, J. Peter. “Red-Light Cameras, Techno-Policing at the Crossroads.” Driving Lessons, Exploring Systems That Make Traffic Safer. Ed. J. Peter Rothe. Edmonton, Alberta: The University of Alberta Press, 2002. Pages 303-315.

Instructions for this activity are found at:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/409a-g23-oral.htm

Instructor: Dr. Leon James

Concept 1 – Would Red-Light Cameras Decrease occurrences of Rear-End Collisions?

a) Hillier et al. did some research to get an answer. From 1986 to 1991, they gathered data from 16 intersections with surveillance cameras and sixteen similar intersections without cameras. Their initial hypothesis was that cameras would increase the occurrences of rear-end collisions because drivers who normally would speed up to a yellow light would be afraid of the cameras that they would make very hard, sudden stops.

b) Their data showed that while crashes resulting from right-turns were decreased by 48%, rear-end collisions were actually increased by between 25-60%. Cameras may not make a difference in the amount of crashes at intersections; while decreasing the likelihood of some, they increase the changes of other types.

c) I found this interesting because usually you would think that surveillance cameras would decrease the likelihood of accidents because people would drive more carefully knowing they have a higher change of getting caught.

Concept 2 – Running Red Lights

a) In 1998, Ng, Wong, and Lum conducted a 9-year traffic research in Singapore, at 125 of its intersections being watched by red-light cameras.

b) Their data showed that the rate of drivers running red lights where there were no cameras were higher. They also found other trends like larger vehicles including busses and taxis were more likely to be involved in crashes than motorcycles and scooters. They also found that accident rates were higher at 3-legged intersections than 4-legged.

c) There were several examples of this kind of research data in this chapter but I felt this study seemed to provide more accurate results being 9 years long and concentrating on 125 areas rather than camera trial-periods of 14 months, or a study watching just 23 sites. I chose to write about this concept because everyone knows or should know that running red lights is illegal but I never knew how many people actually did it (even thought I did know a lot of drivers speed up at yellow lights).

Concept 3 – Beware of Red-Light Runners!

a) We do not know who will and who will not proceed into an intersection after the light turns red (or yellow).

b) Jones says if drivers are three seconds from an intersection when the light turns yellow, they will continue through. Retting et al. claims that red-light runners are probably males younger than 30 years of age. Another fact about red-light runners that are less visible on the road is that they are three times more likely to have previous moving violations concerning speeding.

c) It would be so helpful if we already knew how people drive just by one look at them but because we cannot, it might help just to be aware of observable characteristics to look for to avoid accidents.