Red light running has become an increasingly common problem on our roads. Many people have been injured and lives have been lost as a result.
In the last 5 years, there have been nearly 300 collisions in the area because of motorists disobeying traffic signals. These crashes resulted in nearly 450 casualties; 3 of these were fatal. The problem is much bigger than this as there is no accounting for the number of ‘near misses’ or, to put it another way, ‘near hits’.
What is just as worrying is that there doesn’t seem to be a significant drop in the number of motorists being caught running red lights. Although people are being caught breaking the law, there doesn’t seem to be positive trend in the reduction of red light running.
To address the issue, an educational publicity campaign has been launched in September 2008 to highlight the risks involved. The outdoor element of the campaign shows an incident picked up by a red light camera when a car narrowly escaped a major collision with another car when it ran a red light. The supporting radio campaign re-enacts the thoughts going through the mind of a motorist in a hurry or impatient to get to his destination as he approaches changing traffic signals.
A spokesperson for the Safety Camera Scheme said:
“We are disappointed that red light running offences have not reduced significantly over the years. We all observe the problem on our roads everyday; cars trying to ‘sneak through’ or accelerating as the traffic lights are turning red. This campaign aims to make people think carefully about the dangers of taking risks at traffic signals and bring about a positive change in behaviour.”