Electrical variations

It's all about the money.

(...)

Section 3.6 STANDARDIZATION OF YELLOW AND ALL- RED INTERVALS FOR SIGNALIZED INTERSECTIONS

Derivation of the Yellow Change Interval Formula

That tenth second difference being due to electrical variation is total BS, and if they WERE using such poorly built and antiquated equipment that it suffered from such variation, the responsible thing would be to set the yellow interval a bit high.

Someone is just spewing out horse manure.

Note 3 seconds for 25MPH. IIRC, 25 is the default (unposted) speed limit in residential areas. 35 in business areas. Often 40 and more in most of the "in town" roads, here!

Ha! This last reference is excellent! Though I'm not sure how well it would hold up as a defense in traffic court (against a judge who probably failed "Math") :-/

That assumes that the judge has time to read your calculations. One of my friends is a local judge pro tem. He fills in ocassionally in traffic court. If you've ever been to traffic court, it's organized confusion, where the main goal is to get as many cases settled as quickly as possible. I don't believe you would be allowed sufficient time to have calculations or derivations read and understood by a hurried judge.

A friend, here, was cited for running a red light (photo enforced). He brought in measurements of his truck, the markings on the street, times involved, etc. and had his ticket dismissed.

I think the fine is $250/300 so worth a bit of effort.

From last year (summarizing the ~6 years prior):

- 41,000 violations dismissed because people avoided being served.

- 37,440 violations accepted ("paid")

- 63,000 violations filled up seats in defensive-driving classes

In that time, city netted ~$6M while the "contractor" reaped $5.3M and the *state* $6.2M

If a person approaches the Judge and makes the simple statement that the ticket is invalid because the signal does not meet the state/federal requirements, and the Judge does not stop to listen to the case (or just throw the ticket out at that point), you have grounds for appeal, and possible to seek discipline on the Judge.

Just showing up with regulations and some numbers that show some evidence of being incorrect, and the Judge will likely just dismiss, as there won't be anyone ready to rebut your statement.

Here, the kit has microwave links to transmit the photos outbound. Yet, can't resolve 3.0 seconds to better than 3%??

Of course! And, the "reporter" acted as little more than a "distribution system" for it -- never questioning (nor consulting a third party to do that questioning!) the pablum he'd been fed.

OTOH, he'd be more than willing to expound at great length regarding his OPINION (similarly on something of which he had no first-hand knowledge) and call *that* "news".

You might be amused by where that originated. When broadcast radio was first conceived during the beginning of the 20th century, newspapers had an effective monopoly on news distribution. When radio broadcasters wanted to also provide the latest news, the newspaper industry recognized the potential danger of such competition and decided to do something about it. The FRC (Federal Radio Commission), or maybe the later FCC (Federal Communications Commission), ruled that radio stations could not report the news, but only comment on it, including only what was reported by the newspapers. That's why newspaper people are called "reporters" and the same job in broadcast is called a "commentator". The dividing line has blurred substantially over the years, but the names have stuck.

Absolute BULL! The timing of the lights is controlled by quartz crystals. (I did see a light once that had jumped to the 3rd harmonic, which crystals have a habit of doing. That was a SHORT light!)

Jon