One of the scariest moments while driving is when the signal lights controlling an intersection change, especially to yellow or red. Drivers have to make decisions that affect not only themselves but also other motorists. When intersection timing goes badly, the result can be a catastrophic accident.
The Problem with Yellow Lights
Municipal and state transportation departments tend to focus on traffic flow while treating accidents as an inevitable cost of having a system at all. Particularly, they tend not to be fans of long yellow lights. The typical yellow lasts between 2.5 and 5.5 seconds. Worse, many locales now enforce stopping with traffic cameras.
Drivers end up in a trap when a light hits yellow. Do they stop to avoid traffic enforcement issues and risk a rear-end collision? Do they proceed through the intersection and hope for the best? Worse, some drivers accelerate.
This also creates challenges when the driver completes the turn in heavy traffic. If they get out of the intersection, they might come around the turn too aggressively. This can lead to them rear-ending someone else.
Some drivers are also still in the intersection when the light turns red. It takes one inattentive driver getting the green light to cause an accident in this scenario.
The threat doesn’t stop at other motorists, either. Pedestrians and bicyclists are at heightened risk as drivers make aggressive maneuvers.
Notably, there are multiple demographic issues with yellow lights. Teenage drivers at 40% more likely to run a yellow and 60% more likely to end up in an accident for it. Older drivers have issues, too. Likewise, distracted and drunk drivers are more likely to have trouble safely navigating yellow lights.
Nighttime produces issues around yellow lights, too. Likewise, yellow lights are more problematic in entertainment districts and other areas with lots of distracting roadside stimuli.
Re-timing signals to international standards, which tend to offer longer yellow lights, reduces total crashes by 8%. It also reduces injurious crashes by 12%.
Light Cycles
Another worrisome factor is that longer periods with green lights going in one direction lead to longer periods with red lights going the other way. The next effect is that drivers who sit longer at the red light are more apt to run a red light when they have the chance.
Notably, a longer green left-arrow period reduces accidents. This allows the most challenging traffic to get out of the way before it has to compete with the risk of a head-on collision.
Adaptive controls also reduce risk-taking behavior and accidents by extension. If the system can clear traffic from one direct where it is piling up, drivers tend to be better behaved because they expect to get going legally sooner.
Note that cycling becomes more important when the speed limit is higher. Long red cycles in a 45-mph zone lead to cars flying through yellow and red lights faster. The energy from the resulting accidents is more significant, which lead to notably worse crashes.
Automation of green light waves tends to help clear traffic and reduce accidents. These ensure that traffic that hits one green light will keep hitting others, allowing traffic to flow.
Unsurprisingly, rush hours tend to create the most accidents. Stop-and-go glows combine with poor light timings to create havoc. Note that this traffic tends to be slower and less likely to be fatal. Off-peak traffic often runs faster and blows through more red lights, leading to more fatalities. Throw in additional factors, such as weather and local events, and you get a sense of the challenges facing drivers.
What This Means to Accident Victims
The nature of a crash often boils down to the type of signal timing issues at an intersection. Rear-end crashes are more common in locations with poor yellow light timing. T-bones and other angular collisions occur in areas where the red light doesn’t stay red going both ways long enough to allow vehicle clearance.
Injuries at intersections are generally among the worst. Ask any nationwide personal injury law firm, and they will tell you that the cases that lead to catastrophic injuries or even death frequently occur where drivers have to sort things out on the fly while poorly-timed lights move through sequences.
Problems with light timings expand the potential pool of defendants, too. Logs for light timings are discoverable in court. Likewise, governments and contractors completely document the entire process of approving a light’s timings. This makes it easier to point to how a particular intersection’s design might have contributed to an accident.
In many cases, the documentation shows that problems were known for years. Especially of someone is worried they might be the at-fault driver in a case where they were also hurt, the expanded list of options helps them defend themselves and also attempt to recover damages for their injuries.
You can also compare the performance of different light timing mechanisms. Performance data appears across different systems and intersections. This paints a fuller picture of who might have been at fault.
Note that this can bolster a claim when someone was a victim in a noticeably safe intersection, too. If a transportation department has succeeded in making an intersection relatively safer, it also opens questions about the conduct of the at-fault drivers who cause accidents in those zones. This is worth presenting to a claims adjuster or a core to bolster how much money you ought to get as part of your claim.
Consequences
Intersections are especially dangerous zones, and traffic light timing and crash frequency in intersections are closely related. Worse, catastrophic accidents with potentially uncapped damages thresholds often arise from incidents in intersections. It helps to know what your rights are if you’ve been the victim of an accident in an intersection with a badly timed traffic light.
