Tennessee state legislatures want to increase the yellow light timing to 5 seconds on intersections with red light revenue cameras.
Tennessee Legislators Rep. John Litz and Senator Steve Southerland have introduced bills to set a mandatory 5-sec minimum yellow light time where red light revenue cameras are installed at traffic signals.
And a traffic engineer says…
Jeff Branham, Morristown city engineer, has stated that the 5-second yellow is a bad idea. Branham says changing laws based on “political pressure” is “messing with public safety.”
Well Jeff, if your city was more interested in safety then revenue, the politicians wouldn’t be floating a law like this.
Five seconds is a long time. If the time is increased to 5 seconds, I would be willing to support a large fine for running yellow lights at intersections with red light camera. It’s important to prevent people from “gunning” the yellow lights. I remember many years ago, in the city I grew up they lowered the yellow light timing, and I think it was the “gunning the yellow” issue.
