Florida DOT Cuts Yellow Light Timing To Less Than Federal Guidelines - Red Light Camera Ticket Revenue Soars

A subtle, but significant tweak to Florida's rules regarding traffic signals has allowed local cities and counties to shorten yellow light intervals, resulting in millions of dollars in additional red light camera fines.

The 10 News Investigators discovered the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) quietly changed the state's policy on yellow intervals in 2011, reducing the minimum below federal recommendations. The rule change was followed by engineers, both from FDOT and local municipalities, collaborating to shorten the length of yellow lights at key intersections, specifically those with red light cameras (RLCs).

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ErnestHouse - 5/16/2013 10:13:32 AM

+1 Boost

My son in law is a PE at the FL DOT. The truth is that what has happened is that the DOT found some towns used traffic speed and others used speed limit to calculate the yellow light timing. For consistency, the DOT revised the rules to only use one of those (speed limit). Only those lights that used to use traffic speed are affected. Of course, drivers in those areas are affected by the change (faster yellow lights based on cars being able to stop at slower speed) and more red light runners are caught. 48% of the revenues help the towns while the rest goes to the state. None of the red light runner revenues go to the DOT. Many old people in Florida are killed by young red light runners. None of this is George Bush's fault.

Agent009 - 5/16/2013 10:54:54 AM

+3 Boost

On the surface one might be concerned that shortening the times is more dangerous than lengthening the times.

Shortening will cause a revenue spike (something not lost on the camera companies), while lengthening will cause a decrease in revenue.