FL City Rakes in Big Bucks By Shortening Yellow Lights

Oooh ... Tricky

A tenth of a second can make a big difference. In St. Petersburg, Florida, the yellow time at intersections was shortened by fractions of a second for thousands of drivers, enabling the red light camera program to generate an extra $259,910 in revenue in 13 months. To the unaided eye, the difference between a 4.3 second yellow and a 4.2 second yellow is too brief to be perceived, but it was enough to boost the number of citations issued by five percent.

The short-changing would have gone completely unnoticed had the StPeteCameras.org website not obtained an unusually comprehensive database of red light camera ticket data from American Traffic Solutions, the Arizona-based company in charge of citations. Matt Florell, the website's proprietor, intends to present his findings to the city council at a meeting this morning.