In a study released on Tuesday, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, found that red-light cameras could save lives.
The findings by the institute, a nonprofit group funded by the insurance industry, found that from 2004-8 the cameras saved 159 lives in 14 of the biggest American cities. Extrapolating from these findings, researchers claimed that had red-light cameras, which capture digital photographs of vehicles that supposedly run a red light, been operating during that same five-year period in all large American cities, 815 lives would have been saved.
Crashes that result from running a light are commonly known as T-bone crashes, in which a vehicle running a light collides with the side of another vehicle — the type of crash in which occupants in the impacted car are particularly vulnerable because there is comparatively little material to absorb the impact.
According to government data, 676 deaths were caused by red-light running in 2009, a decrease from 2001, when 1,009 deaths were reported.
Of 99 American cities with more than 200,000 residents in 2008, the researchers identified 14 that had installed traffic cameras from 2004-8. These cities became the primary study group, requiring two date ranges — one spanning a period during which no cameras were installed (1992-96) and another comprising the years during which they were installed (2004-8) — for researchers to effectively measure the rate of change.
The comparison group, meanwhile, included 48 cities that never installed cameras. For consistency, researchers split these cities’ fatality data into the 1992-96 and 2004-8 date ranges.
In the 14 cities where cameras were installed, the combined per capita rate of fatal red-light crashes fell a combined 35 percent, relative to those cities’ 1992-96 data. The fatality rate also fell in the 48 cities in which no cameras were ever installed, but by 14 percent.
The IIHS news release is here and the study is here. I don’t expect this to change anyone’s mind, and it’s all a moot point as far as Houston is concerned, but there you have it.
The IIHS is, as its name implys, funded for by the Insurance Industry. They have been putting out these red light camera surveys for years, but despite being called on it, have failed, repeatedly, to include accident data other than accidents caused by red light runners.
By not including other accident data, they fail to include the signifigant increase in rear end collisions caused by drivers slamming on their brakes to avoid a red light camera ticket.
The report also does not look into other, more intelligent methods, of preventing red light incurrsions. These can include extending yellow light time and adding 2 seconds of all-way red before traffic flow changes direction.
More on the flaws of the report at the National Motorists Association:
http://blog.motorists.org/iihs-flawed-ticket-camera-press-release/
http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/