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News 4 investigates yellow light timing

Posted: May 11, 2010 4:05 AM

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TUCSON - Tucson motorists have been complaining from day one that the yellow lights where Tucson's red light cameras are set up are too short, but are they?

For most drivers the problem isn't with the yellow light going straight, it's when you're turning left. The city said the yellow arrows are set to the state standard of three seconds, but some drivers disagree.

One driver said, "This one is definitely shorter." Another said, "I think they're too short."

Roy Hoeft got a ticket at Tanque Verde and Grant. He didn't think he ran it so he decided to test the light. He said, "Not only do I think, I know they were short. I tracked the light on super slow motion on my computer and found the light to be 2.52 seconds."

And some believe it's no coincidence. One driver said, "I just feel it's rigged somehow."

We got so many complaints about the short lights we decided to come out and time the lights ourselves. We went to multiple intersections and timed from multiple angles and for the most part every light was at 2.8 seconds, not 3.

So we took our results to the city.

Tucson Dept. of Transportation Director Jim Glock said, "Whether or not our controls would have something that would make it lose two tenths of a second would surprise me, but I would take our controllers sensing of the amount of time over your thumb."

Glock said even if he thought my measurements were accurate the 2.8 seconds is plenty of time for cars to make it through the intersection. He added he has no immediate plans to add any time saying that would create even more problems.

Glock said, "We don't add anymore time to a particular phase than we absolutely have to because those seconds per cycle add up and can really cause us a lot of overall delay, congestion, and air pollution."

After we did the story the city did send out some crews to check the timing of the lights and said it's still set to three seconds.

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