Seattle Does the Math: Fines > Lives

In what can best be described the most deplorable money generating scheme hatched by a government against its own citizens, the city of Seattle has opted to shorten the length of the yellow lights on their traffic signals as they expand their red light camera program across the city.

In an article posted on TheNewspaper.com, a city traffic engineer admitted to shortening the length of yellow lights in downtown Seattle, Washington by a 0.5 seconds.

States like Michigan and Texas have discovered that they can actually reduce the number of traffic accidents by lengthening the time the traffic light stays yellow. It infuriates me to see a government going the other way with the length of the yellow light when studies prove that accidents are reduced with a longer yellow light.

It is of my opinion that city officials in Seattle saw the flip side of that study, which indicates that infractions for disobeying a traffic signal rose over 100% when the length of the yellow light is shortened. At $124 a pop, those fines would add up pretty quickly.

From TheNewspaper.com article: "Seattle Traffic Management Director Wayne Wentz told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper that the reduction was not designed to increase the profit of the city's expanding red light camera program."

Shame on you, Mr. Wentz. How stupid do you think people are?

Personally, I'd love to see a class action lawsuit filed against the city of Seattle by any citizen involved in a traffic accident at one of these lights that were "adjusted for traffic flow".

Photo by Flickr user slopjop