It would be a huge drag on everybody else’s life too. The issue is not just that Jo needs to drive to get to work (or to do his work) but also that his employer, family, people he buys stuff from, etc. ALL NEED him to be able to get around to them.

It is *never* an issue of “just public safety” versus some “right” or “privilege” - it’s always a two part equation, safety ALWAYS has a cost (and a value.)

The red light thing is simple - just change the constitution to say all money gathered by fines or seizures must go to some special fund and spread among all citizens. The police/DMV/Feds/whomever DO NOT GET TO KEEP THE MONEY. But you can still have fines. See which cameras stay (some would) and which go away.

While coming to a full stop at red before turning right may annoy you, I believe failure to do so is certainly infraction-worthy. Though where I live, citations for failure to stop before turning right-on-red are as rare as unicorns, I think coasting around corners (sometimes without slowing) at a signal-controlled intersection is very dangerous. With a driver’s primary concern on whether or not an oncoming vehicle will prevent him/her from whipping it around a corner, they are impatiently looking left over their shoulder and ignorant of other possible goings-on around them at the intersection.

As for proceeding past the stop line in order to “see better before turning right”…any intersection that requires you to move past the line (essentialy entering the intersection) in order to “safely” turn right-on-red should prohibit right-on-red turns. If it is unsafe to do so, it should be prohibited, and that should be enforced.

Seems to me one such visit to a traffic school every ten years should be enough for you to learn the content and to be rewarded by reducing points.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (aka the folks who pay when you t-bone someone at an intersection have looked at the question of whether RLC’s decrease fatalities:

http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/rlr.html

Looks like
a) yellow light lengthening doesn’t solve the problem
b) red light cameras do help

Now that doesn’t mean that some municipalities aren’t behaving badly and shortening yellows somewhere. But in Washington State the standard is that you have to *enter* the intersection on red, so merely *being* in the intersection wouldn’t cause a violation if you entered on yellow. Don’t know about NY.

I’ll admit that one thing that annoys me is the prospect of getting an infraction for not making a full stop before turning right. I often proceed past the stop line and then stop where I can see better before turning right and could in theory get a ticket for that behavior (which I think is safe).

But I’ll happily run that risk for the decreased likelihood of getting t-boned. I’ve seen one of those happen in person (not pretty), missed being t-boned myself by mere inches (my front bumper ended up scraping paint on the red light runner’s car - yay good brakes!), and have a friend with permanent brain damage due to a side impact - so I’m not very sympathetic to complaints from red light runners

I don’t know much about Florida, but in NY there is, in my view, a good reason not to do that. Yellow lights here are very, very short. I’ve gotten three red light camera tickets, and I have never gotten one other traffic ticket in eight years of driving. In each ticket, if you look at the photo, my car is almost entirely clear of the intersection, just sticking out a little in the back. What was I supposed to do? Slam on the brakes and get rear-ended? Stop in the crosswalk?

My mother - a very, very cautious driver who I don’t think has ever gotten so much as a parking ticket - has gotten two or three red light camera violations. So long as the fine is small and it doesn’t impact your insurance or license, its just kind of an annoyance, so I don’t mind it much. Fact is, though, driving (like most things) is not always a simple application of rules - you obey the rules, but you also must react safely to subjective situations. Because a camera is obviously incapable of such subjectivity, it makes perfect sense to have lighter penalties for those violations.

Seriously??? Maybe in your circles, but I know of no one outside of this site, and other sites like it where I could say that I know people who like RLCs.

Heck, a quick poll of the people in my office didn’t turn up any fans either.

The comments relate to an issue of driving under the influence, which, yes, begs the question if one should be able to drive still after they receive one. But there are more clever options here than simply taking a license away. A man received over 10 DUIs when the judge passed down a final decision: the man must move to a residence directly parallel to his favorite bar. He never received a DUI again. It’s a funny anecdote, but it begs the question if simply taking a license away is the best preventative to driving while using a narcotic.