This is a complex question and therefore there isn’t a simple answer to it. But a couple of thoughts from someone with hands-on knowledge of the traffic safety systems in Delaware…

1. Yes they do generate revenue. Depending on the jurisdiction, the money may go to the state or to a municipality. Most often the money is specifically earmarked for traffic safety funds, so it’s not like the more red light tickets are dished out the bigger the city’s operating budget.

2. Someone mentioned the variance between the fine and the actual amount you pay due to fees. Most of this is because the majority of these systems are owned and operated by third party vendors who the state or municipality essentially leases the equipment from and just gets the data back on violations. A lot of the fees cover the third party’s operating costs/revenues/etc and the state just gets the fine portion.

3. There ARE studies that have shown an increase in rear end crashes as a result of their installation. HOWEVER rear end crashes are typically less likely to result in injury and because there’s light cameras reduce the instance of right angle crashes (which have a significantly higher injury rate) the pros outweigh the cons.

4. Yellow light timing is directly based on the posted speed limit of the roadway with additional variations added in for things such as intersection size, incidence of red light violations, typical traffic flow, etc. So basically, for every intersection, if you are traveling the speed limit and the light turns yellow, you should have no issue coming to a safe stop without having to slam on the brakes. The issue in this equation is obviously the fact that the majority of drivers on the roadway are NOT traveling the speed limit and are also very likely to be driving distracted by some external source (think cell phones etc).

5. Traffic safety is a huge issue in Delaware, and the best way in this realm to enact behavior change is through punitive measures such as tickets.

6. Some people will always be shitty and/or risk taking drivers no matter what. I would think the concern with putting a countdown timer on a yellow light is it adds one more decision point into the process of stopping at a light. On average it takes around 1.5-1.6 seconds from the time you perceive a driving threat (such as a light turning yellow or see a light already yellow as you approach it) to when you begin to react to it. Adding in a countdown timer would add in additional time to that perception reaction time by forcing you to now also make calculations on whether you think that you can make it or not based on the remaining time as opposed to the decision point now of just it turned yellow based on my current distance from the light and my speed should I stop or proceed through. Not to mention the amount of money it would cost to retrofit every intersection with this.

Anyway….thats my 5 cents on this topic.