#Chicago traffic light drivers#

Baltimore raised its minimum to 3.6 seconds throughout the city, said Frank Murphy, a senior adviser in the city Transportation Department. Maryland passed a state law in 2004 raising the minimum yellow to 3.5 seconds wherever a red light camera is installed. Louis, the minimum is 3.2 seconds in a 30-mph zone. In Detroit and the rest of Michigan, the shortest yellow times are 3.5 seconds. 'We might adjust upward if we are experiencing more rear-enders or if our speed studies show us that people are routinely exceeding the speed limit.' 'When we do formal retiming based on field evaluations, we take into consideration retiming based on prevailing speeds and other things that may be going on at any particular intersection,' he said.

#Chicago traffic light drivers#

In Boston, where red light cameras are not allowed, the only place in the city where there are three-second yellows is downtown, where drivers are often forced to travel below the speed limit, said John DeBenedictis, the city Transportation Department's director of engineering. Scheinfeld said Chicago drivers are given a 0.1-second cushion. 'No citations are issued for three-tenths of a second into the red interval.' 'We think it's important to give drivers that leeway time on the back end,' said Manny Rodriguez, deputy director of New York's red light program. But it also advertises to drivers that no red light camera tickets are issued until 0.3 seconds into the red light. New York does use three-second yellows in 30-mph zones throughout the city. They also said other cities, including their 'peer cities' of Boston and New York City, use the same minimum.īut a closer examination by the Tribune, including interviews with more than two dozen traffic professionals and national experts, shows that those cities' yellow light practices differ from Chicago's. Zavattero and his boss, Transportation Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld, pointed out in a recent interview that Chicago's long-standing practice meets a federal standard setting a three-second minimum for yellow lights.

'It's been 25 years using the same formula and the same assumptions,' he said. Zavattero noted that the same three-second standard was in use long before the city started its red light camera program.

'If you carry that argument forward, then you should encourage people to speed and go through red lights.' 'We don't believe it is a safe environment to be basing your signal timing on a 40-mile-per-hour vehicle traveling through the intersection,' said David Zavattero, deputy director of the Chicago Department of Transportation in charge of the red light camera program.