Too many people run red lights around Boston. It happens all the time. The fact is that there is a yellow light that tells you that the light is about to turn red, and (assuming that it is timed correctly) if you miss that light then either you were speeding excessively or you were deliberately trying to squeeze through when you shouldn't have.

My problem with the "red light cameras" isn't the whole running-reds thing.

I read something in a car magazine about a year ago which gave some interesting and scary information. Now, I don' t have any support for this information other than the article I read, so take it with a grain of salt. But what I heard was that large cities have been deliberately lengthening the signal cycles (longer time intervals that a given light stays green while all the opposing lights stay red) in the interest of better overall traffic flow. This is, I believe, what's been causing people to try to "push" the reds at either end and why some cities are complaining about the running-reds epidemic and needing to install red-runner cameras. Sounds like they need a refresher course in TQM and should be trying to look for the root cause of the problem.

I also read that some cities were deliberately shortening the length of the yellows, even though statistics have shown you'll get fewer red-runners if you lengthen the yellows. That's just downright mean if you ask me.