KEEP SNAPPING: Just one of tens of thousands of accidents that aren't prevented by red light cameras each year.
Question: If you’re an automated ticketing vendor like Redflex or American Traffic Solutions (ATS), what’s a great way to promote your goods and services to the public during “National Stop on Red Week”?
Answer: Release compilation videos of horrific accidents that weren’t prevented by your cameras.
With almost voyeuristic glee, ATS sent out the following press release over the weekend directed at members of the media:
To assist in your coverage of this important, week-long campaign, traffic safety and enforcement innovator automated ticketing and highway robbery fraudster American Traffic Solutions, Inc. (ATS) has produced a video of actual red-light running crashes, captured by its high resolution video cameras. The… video is available for media use and can be downloaded at http://www.atsol.com.
ATS even lists off the length of video carnage in a tasteless attempt to attention whore:
43 seconds total with 20 seconds of crashes included
Bottom line: Red light cameras are dangerous, and have been proven to increase accidents, injuries, and fatalities.
(You can always call ATS’ Josh Weiss and ask him if a video showing one of his family members involved in a serious accident (God forbid) would be an ideal marketing opportunity. His number is (480) 596-4613.)
CameraFRAUD.com - The Cameras are Coming Down 
I wonder if they got permission from those people in the video to show what is most likely some of the worst—or final— moments of their lives?
Would Mercedes Benz release an ad graphically showing the airbags not deploying in an E Class, contributing directly to serious occupant injury?
Would Ford release police car video of Crown Vics exploding and use it to market how dangerous rear end accidents can be?
these people just dont think…
Adding time to yellow lights prevents accidents. Shortening them to “catch more violators” increases accidents.
An increase in accidents after the installation of red light cameras has been recorded time and time again. See a connection?
Look at our cameras causing accidents! Don’t you want these in your city?
The analysis shows that the number of crashes at locations with cameras more than doubled, from 365 collisions in 1998 to 755 last year. Injury and fatal crashes climbed 81 percent, from 144 such wrecks to 262. Broadside crashes, also known as right-angle or T-bone collisions, rose 30 percent, from 81 to 106 during that time frame. Traffic specialists say broadside collisions are especially dangerous because the sides are the most vulnerable areas of cars.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100301844.html
I find the comments that red light cameras do not prevent accidents caused by red light runners disturbing. A police officer staged at an intersection can’t do that either. The concept of improved safety by monitoring intersections by whatever means available is intended to increase awareness and improve driver behavior and results of every study I have read proves that red light cameras work on that. I don’t like the idea of getting a ticket in the mail any more than anyone else but this whole commentary is a joke.
Increasing yellow light times significantly reduce red light violations – more so than any camera will do. So you either want safety or you want money. A lot of municipalities have chosen money under the guise of safety.
well lets just extend the light to 10 seconds so that all who feel their time is more valuable than anyone elses can run the yellow….
http://www.motorists.org/blog/red-light-cameras-increase-accidents-5-studies-that-prove-it/
Also check http://PhotoRadarScam.com/lesssafe.php
No Different View, we think you’re the joke (or an ATS or Redflex “plant”). If the “results of every study” prove that cameras are terrific you haven’t been reading very much! Also you’re not using your brain. Can’t you see that there is now a “road safety industry” feeding, like vampires, off of the stream of fine revenue??
Where does the money come from to pay for the research grants?? Do you really think these “impartial academics” are going to kill off their gravy train?? Are you THAT NAIVE?? (or just on the payroll!)
Robust human enforcement, high visibility Police presence, improves driver behaviour in a raft of ways. Oh, and it also makes would be robbers and thugs think twice too.
Yes, the possibility that red light cameras don’t prevent accidents IS disturbing. It’s also the reality.
What do you think that motorcyclist was thinking, “Thank God! I don’t see an officer or red light camera, so I think I’ll blow through this intersection on red!”? A red light camera would have been, in this instance, absolutely impotent.
Here’s an analogy: imagine a video promoting airbags which depicts a car driving off a cliff and bursting into flames. There’re some accidents in which airbags are wholly impotent.
So why would anyone advertise ANY product in such a manner–unless they are banking on a knee-jerk, fear-based reaction which favors their highly profitable product?
You have to wonder what the point of the bideo was. Let’s show a bunch of “cool” car crashes? We’ve all seen intersection crashes before, they are nothing new. They have always happened and will always happen – cameras or not.
“The concept of improved safety”, as you say, is NOT what is at debate here! WAKE UP – realize you are regurgitating propaganda that you’ve clearly ingested without question – you’ve become a pawn for the proponents of Red Light Cameras (ie: the Corporations & their lobbyists who disseminate the propaganda to which you subscribe). We are immune to such attempts @ misdirecting/spinning this discussion away from the issue at hand here. While I’m sure honest intentions motivated you to post here, be aware of the flawed logic you invoked & then rationally re-think this whole matter again, with a clear mind.
Whatever the INTENDED good reason for the installation of these devices, the ACTUAL EFFECTS upon traffic & red-light violations has had a NEGATIVE impact, & has exacerbated the problem overall.
When a corporation enters into a business profiteering agreement w/ municipalities who install their cameras where negotiated profit received by the corporation can range from 20%-80% of violation charges, a dangerous conflict of interest arises. Even more troublesome is the fact ticketing via means of red light cameras is entirely UNconstitutional…this largely unknown fact is why Red-Light Tickets are not “Moving Violations”, but rather akin to a parking ticket, though even less so. Being such, one can not have warrants issued due to failure to pay, un-arrestable, & the only recourse one could encounter would be from a Collections agency – these citations WILL NOT & CAN NOT EVER BE REFLECTED ON YOUR DRIVING RECORD!
To avoid the Coll. Agencies, simply CONTEST any & every Red-Light Ticket you find yourself receiving in the mail.
I’ve contested 4 so far, never paid any. I have twice received letters back aksing why I contest & I reply to those by saying “one can not determine WHAT I was doing at the moment the camera took the pic, especially not so for a camera machine. Generic BS answer, however it is accurate nonetheless.
So: DENY, DENY, DENY!!!
i hope your proud of the 4 citations you got out of…. so in your world we really dont have to stop at red lights when making a turn? why not just run red lights?
you can deny deny deny all you want… i hope your last words on this earth as you lay on the pavement after having caused an accident is .. i deny deny deny i did anything wrong….
Your an idiot! Red light cameras are horrible. My husband doesn’t run red lights and he got into a very bad accident on Christmas eve because the guy in a compact car stopped on the yellow light so he wouldn’t get a ticket. My husband has a 3/4 ton truck and even with four wheel drive couldn’t get stopped when the other guy slammed on the brakes. The guy in front most likely doesnt ever run red lights but he was so scared about getting a ticket that he stopped early. Red lights cause more accidents than they prevent. We were fortunate that no one was killed but it was close! I hope u get to experience it for yourself to get the full effect of the cameras.
“my husband doesnt run red lights”…. yet he was following someone who yielded ( thats what you are supposed to do on yellow) on the yellow …. got news for you sarah… the idiot is you ( and your husband )…. if your husband was following at a safe distance and the driver in front chose not to run the yellow, for whatever reasons, that means your husband would have been running the red light… and if not red then he certainly was not planning on yielding to the yellow… i am sorry to hear your husband got in an accident…. even more sorry to hear about his penis !!! basically … he got what he deserved…
speaking of being an idiot sarah can you please explain to the audience just exactly how 4 wheel drive helps with braking? do you really even know what 4 wheel drive is
these idiots will never respond when it comes to law enforcement…. they have been bitching about motorists wo brake when they see a camera…. however they will not acknowledge that the same things happens when they see a cop running radar… or for that matter a cop pulled off the side of the rode….. should we eliminate all traffic enforcement? watch … nobody will respond…..
Jay, learn how to spell. It’s not “rode”, It’s “road”. I think if you can’t spell it, you shouldn’t be on it! Maybe there is a cure for your sickness of trying to restrict freedom and liberty??? If it was up to you, there would be a camera inside the residence and or bedroom of all the citizen’s of Arizona. It’s all about the money and thankfully the state responded to the outcry of it’s citizens in taking the cameras down!
[…] red light cameras. As a gesture, American Traffic Solution has put up a video of red light crashes. CameraFraud.com is not impressed and believes this is quite a tasteless […]
I looked at the seven video’d accidents, several times each, and noticed:
A. None of the seven video’d accidents was a right turn accident. You’d think that to justify the company’s heavy emphasis on right turn enforcement, ATS would have provided footage of a few right turn accidents.
B. Despite the fact that the majority of tickets issued nationwide are for a late time of less than 1/2 sec., all of the accidents depicted showed cars that were obviously multiple seconds late. Where’s the videos justifying those 1/10th, 2/10th and 3/10th late time tickets?
My comments on the seven videos:
Video # 1. Motorcycle rider (my condolences to his next of kin) missed red by 4 secs. or more. Probably due to inattention or impairment; not on purpose, so cameras will not stop such accidents.
Video # 2. Signals right after cars emerge from dark underpasses are known hazards and a popular site for red light cameras. The local traffic engineers need to improve the pavement markings and visiblity of the signal lights, as cameras won’t stop the running.
#3. Signal was red 3 secs. or more, so running probably was due to inattention or impairment. Won’t be cured with cameras. Improve pavement markings and visiblity of the signals. Arrest impaired drivers.
#4 & #5. Vehicle hangs left turn without checking for oncoming traffic. Cameras don’t cure stupidity.
#6. We can’t see the light the white car was facing, so there is no evidence that he had a red light, or for how long. If he indeed ran a red, it was probably due to confusion – traffic cones, rainy day. Some accidents just happen; cameras won’t stop them.
#7. Probably older driver or one with poor night vision, and he would have been just as likely to hit poorly marked traffic island if his signal had been green (assuming it was red). Cure with proper marking of island; a camera can’t cure this.
All in all, this video collection fails to support the use of red light cameras. The failure is so obvious I predict it will go down as a PR debacle for the Industry.
Henry
More about videos #6 and #7:
I also think that blinding/distraction caused by the initial flash of the camera could have contributed to these accidents.
Henry
The owners of that company deserve to get gang-raped by Big Bad B-Block Bubba and his Butt-Banging Bastards.
once again…. a camera can not prevent an accident… just as a real cop can not prevent one…. what we dont know is the number of accidents prevented due to the presence of the cameras….
maybe one of these days it will hit you folks like a car getting t- boned when hit by a red light runner!!
For some all it takes is getting a hefty fine in the mail, to change their redlight running behavior.
The actual reason for the camera’s.
You must be blind. Did you not watch the video for this post? None of those accidents were caused by intentional red light running. Key word: intentional. Cameras cannot stop mistakes and errors in judgement.
Actually according to both the UK and US national authorities “enforcement” is the LAST resort when there is a red light problem!
Why can no one produce the MANDATORY traffic study for these intersections?
What happens when you don’t get to see the entire picture?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/07/10/video_clears_up_misleading_obama_photo.html
People make mistakes. Technology is created by people. Get the picture?
I would tend to agree with Henry. The videos don’t show where a red light camera would have produced a different outcome in any of the accidents. I ride a motorcycle and recommend slowing down when approaching an intersection and looking in all directions to keep from getting hit. It looks like the MC rider just wasn’t paying attention to enter an intersection that was full of cars. Motorcyclists don’t always get a second chance after making a mistake like that. The car drivers don’t seem to be paying attention either, but will probably still be alive. WHERE DOES ATS MENTION MORE STRINGENT DRIVER TRAINING-THE ONE THING THAT WOULD HAVE MOST LIKELY PREVENTED ALL OF THESE ACCIDENTS. OH, THAT DOESN’T PAY THEM ANY MONEY-$$$$$-IT WOULD JUST SAVE LIVES AND PROPERTY DAMAGE. I’LL BET THE INSURANCE COMPANIES WOULD BE INTERESTED IN REDUCING THEIR PAYOUTS BECAUSE OF ALL OF THE ADDITIONAL ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS CAUSED BY REDLIGHT CAMERAS AND SHORTENED YELLOW LIGHTS.
I couldn’t agree with you more about how much new driver training is lacking.
It’s pathetic how easy it is to get a license, especially in this state. Because of that, my parents enrolled me in a private driving school when I was 15. It did the trick. Thirteen years driving with zero accidents. I would also recommend the Bob Bondurant defensive driving school for new or young drivers.
Sensible Driver gets her paycheck from ATS. Poorly disguised propaganda.
What part of sensible don’t you get? He or she made valid points and I would rather act like Sensible driver than ignore all the other bull I am reading here.
I don’t get the idea that this has anything to do with safety. I received the ONLY ticket in 50+ years of driving through the photo scam system while I (AND my car!) were actually in Canada.
Even if we had driven at the speed of sound we could not have been where the scameras claimed!
There are many problems with Sensible’s arguments, and it appears he is the one that needs common sense.
First and foremost is the illogical supposition that most red light running is intentional. This is not true, as most red light running is the result of an error in judgement. This is why extending yellow light times is 100% effective at reducing violations, usually by more than 50%. Sensible’s arguments would also have you believe that dangerous drivers all congregate at your city’s most dangerous intersections. This is false. Overall, you have the same drivers at all intersections and locations, so if one intersection is worse than another, the problem lies in the intersection, NOT the driver! Sensible would prefer to punish the driver who is merely a victim of an under-engineered intersection rather than fix the flaws that are causing accidents. As such, a proper traffic engineering study is the most prudent measure as these will often reveal several EASY improvements that can be made: light timing, signal visibility, signs & sign visibility, pavement markings, and more. People like Sensible clamor for cameras when they should be clamoring for proper traffic engineering so that intersections that have an above-average accident rates can be brought inline with the rest of the city.
In reference to data, Sensible downplays the severity of non-T-bone accidents. This is not to be so easily accepted as any accident has the potential to be deadly and dangerous. Try stopping short in a small compact car when there’s a semi or cement truck behind you and tell me that’s going to turn out well. When accidents of all kind MORE THAN DOUBLE after cameras are installed, clearly the cameras are causing more harm than good. There is no evidence that accidents decrease at an intersection over time due to cameras.
Sensible then tries to frame all people who get an RLC as having a rogue, above-the-law mentality. This tactic is common among supporters but also unfounded. Most of these people have otherwise clean driving records and are at worst guilty of making a poor judgement when approaching an intersection as the light changes. Anyone who’s driven any amount of time has been caught in the precarious decision zone of do I keep going or try to stop and has made a decision that may have lead to a technical RL violation of less than 1/2 second after the red. I’m sure that even Sensible has done this a few times in his/her driving career. In fact, data shows that 80-90% of all RLC tickets lie within this harmless all-red period during which very few accidents ever occur. IIRC, the most dangerous accidents occur around 9 seconds into a red light cycle – a point at which very few RLC tickets are issued. So rather than telling people not to run red lights, it would probably be more accurate to tell people to improve their judgement and decision making skills when in the dilemna zone. As if it was just that easy. Of course, if you just extend the yellow light a little bit you increase the error margin for the people who make the wrong decisions and then you have fewer drivers making this mostly harmless technical and honest mistake.
Cameras are NOT answer, and are NOT a replacement for the application of traffic engineering solutions.
This company is the pits. They pay their help like third world citizens, and they spend hours “processing” the video from the cameras to make it look good.
Taking pictures of people running red lights or speeding does not have any effect when the collision occurs — the camers cannot physically stop the collision. Rear impact collisions can and do result in serious injury, as can any other type of collision.
Yes, the tickets may keep coming for a little while longer, until we remove the scameras that generate them — through vote, direct action, or ????. Until that happens, we’ll just keep throwing them away, realizing that the odds are heavily in our favor that nothing more will ever come of the mailings.
Yes, drivers are arrogant alright — when Big Brother attempts to regulate activity via for-profit foreign corporations for the sake of the almighty dollar! Drivers are also arrogant when confronted with arbitrarily-low speed limits and shortened yellow times at lights — again, to facilitate revenue collection. We’re looking for true safety measures here (e.g. longer yellow times, well-maintained roads), as opposed to a road use tax in disguise!
Yep, the “small fines” are a gift alright — to the corporations running the cameras!
Traffic school is a great idea — I’d go with the Bondurant defensive driving program!
All good points, especially about that Bondurant program. It teaches you a whole new way to think about the physics of driving and the mechanics of a passenger car.
Of course this assumes that the citations actually have something to do with an actual traffic situation!
The courts are backed up for almost two years with people who are spending significant time and money to state their feelings that they are falsely accused!
I have been to Vietnam where the streets have no traffic lights and the traffic is madness…..but much less accidents. Sometimes it boils down to the individuals……
I recieved a Notice of Violation from ATS on a vehicle that was clearly not mine, from a county that I had never been in. All because they read a really blurred License plate numbe as mine. I was then told by the State Police that I had no recourse until a Uniform Traffic Citation (UTC) was issued, at which time I could go to Court and fight it at my expense. Also if I waited that long the fee jumps from 158 to 261 dollars.
This is why we do what we do. Trash your ticket http://bit.ly/NTTrashTix
Rumor has it that ATS was working on jay walk camera to increase their profit margin. Problem was that too many homeless people would have triggered them off. Since collecting revenue for the city and themselves is the company’s main objective, and not the safety of a city’s unemployed citizens, the idea was quickly scrapped.
Really no matter if someone doesn’t know then its up to other visitors that they will help, so here it happens.