Unfettered Letters

Red-light cameras aren’t about safety

If you buy into the propaganda that the recently activated red-light cameras are for your safety, then I have some oceanfront property in Arizona that you might be interested in, too.

According to the Missouri Driver’s Guide, motorists are supposed to stop at yellow lights, but only if it’s safe to do so. However, people are now speeding more excessively than ever through intersections or slamming their brakes to avoid tickets. This type of driving can be more dangerous than running the red light.

It’s no coincidence that the red-light cameras were activated in Kansas City shortly before the announcement of huge budget cuts.

It’s not about your safety; it’s about money.

Eli Noland
Blue Springs

Plaza risky for pedestrians

Recently, I caused a traffic accident. Fortunately, I was not breaking any laws or rules of the road. Neither was the cabdriver who was rear-ended.

I was trying to cross 47th Street at Central in my motorized wheelchair. After many cars rushed through the intersection oblivious to the crosswalk, a cabdriver finally stopped for me. As I started across the street, I heard screeching of brakes and saw the driver behind him rear-end him, all because he was following the law by stopping for a pedestrian in a crosswalk.

Those of us who live in the Country Club Plaza neighborhood witness incidents like mine frequently. Drivers are oblivious to pedestrians trying to cross the street in a crosswalk. Many of us have begged Plaza management, the city and the Police Department to make crosswalks more visible to drivers by striping them, adding signs, giving tickets or even lowering the speed limit.

Will it take an injury, death or a mangled wheelchair for action to be taken to make these streets and crosswalks safer for our citizens?

Susie Haake
Kansas City

Red-light behavior

Amy Brown (1/19, Letters) wonders why cars stop a length or two behind the car in front of them at red lights. The reason I do this is to avoid a multi-car accident should I be rear-ended at the light.

If I were on the tail of the car in front of me and was rear-ended, I would be pushed into the car ahead of me (making that accident my fault) and probably ticketed for being too close.

It’s a safety issue, the same way tailgating is dangerous while moving. Being too close to the car in front of you at a light can be dangerous.

On another safety topic: Please, please, please, people, use your blinkers. Not only is it the law, but it allows those of us without psychic powers to know what you are planning to do with your 2,000-plus pound vehicle. Thank you.

Kim Bauer
Kansas City

Red-light cameras might not be safer

Red-light cameras will not will not necessary protect the public (1/10, Opinion). The basic reason is that a driver does not know when the light is about to change.

To help a driver know the light is about to turn yellow, the green light should start blinking. This gives the driver plenty of time to stop. I’ve seen this done in another city, and the method works well.

I firmly believe there will be little change in public protection because, again, we simply do not know when the light will turn yellow.

Darryl Taylor
Leawood

Red-light cameras in KC

The Star’s E. Thomas McClanahan finally brings red-light cameras in Kansas City to light. (1/4, Opinion, “Revenue quest, not safety, is behind cameras”).

Congratulations, fellow Kansas Citians! Your motoring safety has been compromised. On May 1, 2008, the City Council unanimously voted to move forward with the installation of red-light cameras.

Don’t fool yourself about the deterrent effect of red-light cameras. Any introductory criminal justice class teaches that the best deterrent for a wrongdoing is a swift and just punishment. The inconvenience and embarrassment of being pulled over on the spot for running a red light is a far greater deterrent than a notice being sent in the mail weeks later. A “ticket in the mail” is merely one more bill to pay for the offender.

If this is really about driving safety, multiple studies have concluded that extending yellow light durations is much more effective. Will the cameras be removed in the future when red-light infractions decrease?

Start the petitions for removal now.

Jeff Weis
Kansas City

Use caution at green lights

Last Friday, at 6:30 a.m., I was driving north on Wyoming Street and crossing 39th Street in the rain. If I hadn’t paused I would have been broadsided by an inattentive driver who ran the red light while he was going west on 39th. My light turned green and, as always, I paused before proceeding due to this type of infraction.

If you were that driver, please be careful in the future. If you are any driver behind me and I don’t immediately take off when the light turns green, you now know why.

Andrew L. Barresi
Kansas City

Bring on the traffic cameras

I’ve gotten used to the fact that when a traffic signal turns green, I have to wait on all the cars running the red light before I proceed. I’ve gotten used to people running stop signs, too.

But I was shocked and dismayed when I was at 103rd and Nall on June 30 and watched car after car turn left in front of a police car with its lights and siren on. The police car had to wait because at least six people thought wherever they were going was more important than the emergency the police officer was responding to.

Bring on those traffic cameras. If you’re worried you might get a ticket because of them, then slow down and obey traffic laws.

And don’t lend your car to someone who might break those laws, because you’ll be the one paying the ticket.

Kitty Needham
Merriam

Time for ‘smart’ traffic signals

Why can’t metropolitan Kansas City take the lead in energy conservation by doing something more than changing to compact fluorescent light bulbs?

Would not a complete network of “smart” traffic signals put Kansas City at the front? There are already computerized systems on stretches of the busiest streets. Just drive down Metcalf and, if your speed is right, you can miss most of the stoplights. Also, the interstates have the Kansas City Scout, a network of cameras and message boards, to keep traffic moving.

However, most traffic signals use outdated technology and activate retroactively. As a vehicle approaches a vacant intersection with a red light, a sensor detects the vehicle and initiates a timer to change the light to green. Meanwhile, the vehicle comes to a complete stop and the driver waits for the light to change.

A far better system would sense the approaching vehicle halfway down the block, well in advance of the intersection, and change the light to green before the vehicle needs to slow down. If more than one vehicle approaches, the system would decide the most efficient flow pattern considering undue delays in the cross direction.

This would save gas, time, tires, brakes and annoyance.

Joseph Landwehr
Kansas City

Charity runs hinder traffic

Well, summer is here again. Once again on a recent Saturday, I left for work from my home in South Hyde Park only to find that I was effectively barricaded in my own neighborhood because there was some run down Gillham Road.

Every direction I tried to go to get around this, I was directed by security back toward my own home. I was trying to get to the QuikTrip on Main to put gas in my almost-empty vehicle before heading back to 71 Highway for work. Long story short: I ended up being 45 minutes late.

To the city permits department and the organizers of these events: Please consider the impact you are having on the citizens of midtown before you do this again.

If organizations wish to put together these events, Westport High School has a running track behind its building. Mill Creek Park has a wonderful jogging track. Have your events there and leave the streets of Kansas City open to those who need to use them.

Not all of us have weekends free, nor can we wait for your event to end before we go about our business.

Todd Ruser
Kansas City

Synchronized signals save gas

Frances Keating (5/12, Voices) was right that drivers would need to slow down to take advantage of synchronized lights. One of the main advantages of synchronized lights is there is no longer a reward for speeding and running red lights.

It is time for us to look at traffic controls as an opportunity to save a huge amount of gas, which benefits us all.

We can no longer afford to have lights where left turns are made only on a special light. How much gas and time are wasted sitting at a light where you’ve just missed the left turn signal when there is no oncoming traffic?

Late at night, lights should be set to blink so that the main road doesn’t stop traffic unnecessarily.

It is time that Americans realize that conservation of gas is not only an economic issue but a national security issue as well. Sane traffic signals could save millions of gallons of gas, time and — in the long run — lives.

Bill Stoker
Overland Park