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Where I live, it's common to see at least one person run a red at every major intersection and not just for left turns that couldn't be made due to cross-traffic. Quite often these drivers have expired temp tags which means they don't have insurance because you have to show you registered your vehicle to get insurance. Enforcement is awful so people have been trained to realize there's virtually no consequences to their bad habits. And if they do cause an accident, well it's not like the police will show up in time to stop them from driving off.

In fact, it's so bad that parts of the metro are reinstating red light cameras this year despite having decommissioned them years ago for similar legal reasons as what Florida has run into.

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>drivers have expired temp tags

Then the state needs to start doing immediate impoundment of these vehicles. Add on massive fines before release of the car for repeat offenders and you'll see this dry up pretty quick.

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The city supposedly did an enforcement weekend on it last year. It was so ineffective that the state actually changed registration laws so that you pay the sales tax when you purchase a car at the dealership and then you get your plate in the mail. That doesn't go into effect until late this year and I won't be surprised if it gets pushed back before then.
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Fairly common for me to see my light turn green and 2-3 more cars continue turning left in front of me through a red light. And not just yellow-light clippers, but cars that would have fully entered the intersection under a red light.

I'm actually all for impartial enforcement of traffic rules via camera systems, but there are problems that need to be solved.

- There need to be standards for evidence required to assign an infraction to a driver.

- There need to be standards for setting yellow light durations to avoid municipalities reducing them to increase revenue

- There needs to be protection against municipalities outsourcing the whole project to a private entity where there is a combined financial incentive from the private entity and the municipality to issue more tickets without adequate oversight.

My town implemented red light cameras around 15 years ago and then took them back out. Locals noticed shortened yellow lights, and there were multiple issues found with how the private operator issued the tickets and with their contract with the municipality.

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I live in Baltimore and straight-up running of reds is pretty common here.

You can often do it pretty safely - stopped at a light with good visibility to see that there is no cross traffic. But also some people are just insane and blast through lights at 45 without stopping.

Cops haven't cared to enforce it for going on a decade.

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This is a silly example but in Los Angeles, there are hardly any protected left hand turns so the standard behavior is to wait for the light to turn red and two cars proceed before the next traffic group continues. Police even do this.
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San Francisco also has a good number of unprotected left turns. Cities are just asking for trouble.
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Where I live people run them routinely to make left turns. The light timing and spacing are bad, so at some intersections people will keep turning left long past the turn red. There are also several intersections where people cross but get stuck in the middle because another light has to change for traffic to move.
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The vast majority of red light tickets are people not coming to a complete stop behind the line on right turns on red.
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Running reds is a favorite pastime of Boston area drivers. Enter just after the yellow and buzz the pedestrians waiting, lurk in the middle of the road and make a left turn once oncoming traffic is stopped for the red, or just blow it for the hell of it.
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> lurk in the middle of the road and make a left turn once oncoming traffic is stopped for the red

In the jurisdictions I'm familiar with, this is the proper way to make a left-hand turn. Many intersections are designed such that this is the only realistic way to ever turn left (high traffic, no left arrow).

Most red light rules are written against entering the intersection on red. If you're already in the intersection, you're allowed to safely proceed through and out of the intersection on red. That can be challenging, of course, if oncoming traffic is running the red light.

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The worst drivers do it a lot more than good drivers.
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I mean I’ve run red lights but only because I live in a city and there are times where it would be impossible to turn left due to oncoming traffic. So you poke your nose out a bit so the other directions see you and turn when incoming stops but before new directions start.
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Depending on where you live it is very common. In chicago when they installed the cameras they lowered the yellow duration to like half a second so people were constantly running them for a while. Then running yellows became normalized, and just ignoring lights from bikers which drivers noticed, and now when traffic is low its not uncommon to see people just treat lights as stop signs if they think no one is coming.
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Yep, the states acted like aunts to get more money and have made the whole system more unsafe for everyone.

Anyone involved in those yellow light lowering schemes should have been criminally charged.

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