City council has decided to implement ten red light cameras that will be rotated between 22 intersections in London.
The purpose of the cameras is reducing right angle collisions, and are expected to be implement by 2017.
Councillors approved the motion 14 to 1.
During the debate, ward 1 Councillor Michael Van Holst tried to introduce an amendment to the motion. “The purpose of the amendment was to mitigate the fact that red light cameras often cause more rear-end collisions, in kind of a little bit of collateral damage to cutting down in right-angle collisions.”
Councillor Van Holst proposed increasing the length of the yellow light for about a second, “By making that a little bit longer, we can tell motorist ‘don’t worry if you are driving safely. Even if you make a tiny error in judgement that buffer will make sure that you don’t get a ticket’.” The amendment was soon withdraw.
Van Holst stresses the importance of letting the drivers know that there’s no need to slam the brakes in an intersection with these cameras.
Ward 4 Councillor Jesse Helmer was feeling quite excited for the approval of the red light camera approval: “I’m glad to see us taking some action to reduce those right-angle collisions that we know are a problem.”
Councillor Helmer said this is just one of many initiatives to come for road safety: “We are trying to over the course of multiple years to reduce collisions and injuries by ten per cent and we are trying to make a significant difference here in city of London. This is just one aspect of over 38 actions on our road and safety strategy.”
Under which situation will you get a ticket when in an intersection with a red light camera?
Helmer explained, “If you are the car waiting to turn left or right, and you enter the intersection when it wasn’t red, you are fine. You are not running a red light in that case. You are not going to get a red light ticket. But if you go in when it was red, and then you enter the intersection, now you’re getting a ticket.”
