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DelDOT wants new red light cameras, citing safety study

A new state report shows intersections with red light cameras have seen fewer of the types of the most dangerous crashes over the past several years, prompting calls to outfit more intersections with the machines.

 

“The angle crashes have reduced by 47 percent in the after period and these are generally the most severe types of crashes that occur at intersections where you have a T-bone style crash between two vehicles. A lot of these are related to red light running at the signalized intersections,” said Adam Weiser, DelDOT’s safety program manager.

 

Overall, crashes at the 30 red light camera intersections have increased by four percent since cameras were installed – something Weiser attributes to higher traffic flows from the past decade.

 
Because of that, the agency wants to install 16 new red light cameras.
 
15 of those new cameras would be in New Castle County, with the remaining one camera proposed for the intersection of Route 1 and Savannah Road in Lewes.

 

“Those are locations that have experienced a lot of red light running crashes over the last three years, which is what our data analysis looked at. We rank all of our signalized intersections throughout the state for this program based on the approaches with the highest amount of red light running crashes,” Weiser said.

It’s unknown how much those new cameras will cost.

Total citations given out have dropped as well from a 2012 high of nearly 49,000 to 39,430 in 2015.

The state earned nearly $1 million from the program last year – that’s down from $2.3 million in 2010.

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