Red Light Robber

Connection Engineering Practice Law Chapter 391

20-299(1) "Engineer means a person . . . who has the special knowledge of the mathematics and the physical sciences"

20-306a(2) A corporation must be issued a certificate of registration by the board of engineers.

Connection Engineers Code of Conduct 20-300

(a)3--Engineer must not do work outside their education. Traffic engineers do not know the math and science of their own "ITE Yellow Change Interval Formula". They misapply the equation and substitute incorrect values for its "constants", thus shorting the yellow light duration which in turn forces drivers to unintentionally and systematically run red lights.

Connecticut Motor Vehicles Statute - Traffic Control Signals

Title 14, Chapter 249 (Section 14-299): (2) Yellow. Connecticut is restrictive yellow law state. You cannot enter the intersection on a yellow unless you can clear the width of the intersection before the light turns red. This is unusual. Most states changed from restrictive to permissive yellows in the 1980s.

CTDOT Evaluating Clearance Interval Timings

The advent of red-light cameras in Connecticut encourages the CT Department of Transportation to shorten the yellow light durations to the minimum.

The standard of practice, even before any shortening, already causes every driver to run red lights several times a year. The underlying math of the yellow change interval equation both opposes the physics of motion and assumes the reaction times of all allowed drivers on the road are shorter than average. Shorter than average in itself excludes half the driving population.

Further shortening a yellow from 4.0 to 3.0 seconds, increases red-light running from 30 violations to 600 violations a month. Correct yellow light durations would be about 3 seconds longer than what they are now.

Note the CTDOT web page says, "If the yellow light is too long, drivers may treat it as an extended green." This has been a myth since the 1930s, and known to be a myth since 1961.

The myth originated in fact in the 1920s. In the 1920s, policemen manually operated traffic lights. A policeman would stand in the middle of an intersection next to a manually-operating traffic signal. The policeman would pull a lever to turn the signal from yellow, to red or to green. Before the policeman pulled the lever to red, he visually anticipated which cars approaching him would stop or go.

The police officer and the driver would stare at each other eye-to-eye. They would play chicken and in those days, this game of chicken was formally called "squeezing the lemon". Driver wins of course. In the end, the policeman would keep his yellow light yellow longer.

"Lengthening the yellow makes drivers treat the yellow as a green" is another way of saying squeezing the lemon. But one hasn't been able to squeeze more juice out a yellow light since the 1930s. In the 1930s yellow lights were automated with a timing gear. The myth continues to this day despite its formal debunking in the 1961 paper Driver Response to the Amber Phase of Traffic Signals by Olson and Rothery.

CTDOT publishing this statement is false pretense. The statement comes from the red-light camera firms. Science reveals the opposite of the statement. The data shows that you make the yellow-light duration the time to stop, only 1 or 2 cars in a month will run the red lights. Keep it CTDOT short, and there will 30 - 1000 red light runners each month per camera.

The CTDOT standard of practice is make the yellow HALF the time to stop.

Connecticut Photo-Enforcement Statute 14-307

Photo-enforcement violations are called citations. They are not the same as tickets issued by police officers. (If a policeman pulls you over, he issues you a criminal infraction. Read the difference between an Infraction and Violation from the Connecticut Judicial Branch.)

The first photo-enforcement notice a vehicle owner receives is called a warning. Subsequent notices are called citations. The first citation has a fine of $50. Subsequent citations have a fine of $75. A cap of $15 can be added as a fee. Any more penalty than that is unlawful. Lawyers call excessive fees an overstepping of the enabling statute.

Connecticut neither gives insurance points nor withholds car registrations for photo-enforcement citations. In order to be a criminal violation, the US 6th Amendment requires the city to identify the accused. But in photo-enforcement, the city does not know the identity of the accused. The city relies on the accused to turn himself in. Only when you acknowledge that you received the citation in the mail do you obligate yourself to the city ordinance. So don't acknowledge that you received the citation. Therefore,

Paying photo-enforcement citations in Connecticut is voluntary.

There is no bite to the Connecticut photo-enforcement statutes. Photo-enforcement relies on the vehicle owner to identify himself. If the owner does not respond, nothing happens.

Also note that in 14-307c (i)(2), the ticket is invalid if mailed to Connecticut vehicle owner 30 days after violation date. 60 days if out-of-state vehicle owner.

It is unusual for Connecticut to demarc time intervals to the day the citation is mailed. The wording ignores whether the vehicle owner actually receives the citation. Reception is implied.

But Connecticut cities and camera firms have no control over the US Mail. Neither cities nor you are responsible for the US Mail either.

If you are worried about your credit rating being hit, don't be. It is unlawful for a credit reporting agency to blemish your credit report with photo-enforcement citations. Why? Because no credit was issued to you. A municipality may try to turn your citation into a debt, but the debt is not the federal definition of a debt.

In 2015, a team of lawyers confronted the photo-enforcement industry about treating photo-enforcement fines as credit hits. As a result, all firms volunteered to never hit your credit record. So, if such a hit occurs, fear not. All you have to do is call the credit reporting agency, and the agency will remove the hit usually within 24 hours.

Connecticut Hearing Procedures for Citations

How long do you have to pay for photo-enforcement citation?

Title 7, Chapter 98, Sec 7-152c. Paragraph (c) refers to the end of the uncontested period. But 14-307c does not define an uncontested period.

Connecticut Automated Photo-enforcement Approval Statuses

This is a list of municipalities who have cameras or have applied for approval to get cameras.

Hartford Photo-Enforcement City Ordinance

Chapter 22, Article IV, Sec 22-127-139

New Haven Photo-Enforcement City Ordinance

Title III Chapter 29 Article VII Sec 29-137 to 29-146