DRIVE TIME
Pausing to think about the risks of that red-light rumba
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer
Red means stop.
It seems so basic, one of those things you learn almost before you can walk or talk: When the light turns red, you stop.
Yet more than 1,000 Americans lose their lives each year in crashes when drivers go through a red light. Thousands more are injured. In fact, when it comes to avoidable accidents, red-light runners do more damage than just about anyone, except drunk drivers.
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Admit it, you probably were guilty at one time or another, too. In fact, while 98 percent of Americans feel that running a light is dangerous, more than half of them admit deliberately running red lights, according to a survey a couple of years ago. Other surveys show that two-thirds of drivers in California, Florida and Washington, D.C., see someone running a red light almost every day.
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The same surveys show that the most commonly given reasons by those who run red lights include limited visibility of traffic signals, the red wait time is too long, poor timing of the yellow light, driver inattention or disrespect for traffic signals, and the most frequent excuse of all: "I was in a hurry."
So several national groups have proclaimed this week the fifth annual National Stop on Red Week.
It's a partnership of the Federal Highway Administration, the American Trauma Society and the Institute of Transportation Engineers, which provide some statistics about red-light crashes:
- In 2001, the last year for which these statistics are available, there were an estimated 103,000 red-light-running crashes in intersections across the country, resulting in 84,000 injuries.
- The number of fatal crashes and fatalities increased 6 percent and 5 percent respectively to 1,026 fatal crashes and 1,131 fatalities in the last two years.
- Red-light-running crashes exact a toll in excess of $12 billion on our economy, counting medical expenses and time lost from work.
So what's being done to reduce those figures? Elsewhere, officials say the real key to reducing red-light accidents might be to make the yellow lights longer. The reasoning goes that if you give a driver more time to get through an intersection on a yellow light, he'll have more time to decide to stop when the light actually turns red. The arguments on this topic are far from over.
Meanwhile, national safety officials hope campaigns like this year's Stop on Red Week will keep spreading the word on how deadly red-light runners can be.
Find further information on red light safety at safety.fhwa.dot.gov/programs/srlr.htm.
Mike Leidemann's Drive Time column runs Tuesdays.
