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I found an interesting question on the Whirlpool forum today from a person wondering if there was any chance of getting out of a red light camera fine. The quick answer is generally no. https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/32krv6j9However I found this intersection to be quite interesting. It took me a while to understand what had happened. The person was travelling in Surrey Hills NSW, along Foveaux Street turning right into Crown Street. The right turn lane is a dedicated lane for right turning cars. The lights for going straight ahead were green, but there was a red right turn arrow. If you look at the traffic lights you'll see a stack arrangement of four lights. I've not seen four vertical lights like this in Victoria. The top light it appears is the turn arrow light. Secondly there's no oncoming traffic as this is a one-way street. In Victoria I've not seen a right turn arrow where there's no traffic coming towards you. Perhaps there is one, but I can't recall one. The driver in this case noticed the pedestrian walk sign was green but there was no one on the pedestrian crossing. This would indicate the turn arrow may either be timed, or pedestrian activated. In this case the driver didn't know the right turn arrow was red as their visor was down and this blocked their view of the top turn light. The obvious lesson here is you need to make sure you can see all traffic lights and make sure your vision is not obscured by your visor. It's also a good reminder to Victorian drivers that some traffic lights in NSW are pedestrian activated. One things this also shows is the limitation of the traffic light technology. If it is the case that a pedestrian pressed the button to activate the red right turn arrow, but decided to move on and not cross the road, then the pedestrian has impacted the flow of the traffic and a fine has been issued where there zero chance of a safety risk to anyone. In effect the driver has been fine in a situation where there was not safety risk. Ultimately however if a driver doesn't obey the traffic lights, no matter how absurd they've been designed, they are disobeying the law. In this case a simple and costly mistake by the driver. Kelvin Eldridge www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au |
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