STOP: Need better engineering
Let me state from the offset, I neither condone nor am I attempting to justify red light running. I would suggest that some red-light running could be mitigated by “standardizing” traffic signal sequencing and by upgrading outdated traffic signal technology… at least at major arterial intersections.
In 2016 at least two individuals, with the apparent credentials, voiced on the Coeur d’Alene opinion page their concern over traffic signaling in this area. There was no response. With red-light running now rampant and newsworthy, no one seems to have made the obvious connection.
Every driver facing an open lane and a fresh amber light ahead of them has to make an almost instantaneous decision: continue, brake or accelerate. The driver’s response, especially if having prior experience with the upcoming intersection, can be exacerbated by poor decisions made by the traffic design engineers, lack of current traffic counts and studies, and local municipal budget priorities.
You don’t have to have lived here long to first-hand witness the outdated “timed” technology of an empty intersection going through its complete programmed traffic sequence. Or, be seven cars back in a left turn lane that allows three cars through on a green to red sequence. Or, trying to mentally separate the U.S. 95 intersections that get the left turn arrow at the beginning of the signaling sequence from those at the end.
Yes, all red-light running can kill regardless of why!
Be Alert. Drive Defensively!
CHARLIE ZEITS
Hayden