fromOfficers make traffic safer, one ticket at a time
By Eve Sullivan
Staff Writer
Published August 26 2005
STAMFORD -- Two Stamford police officers sat on motorcycles at Tresser and Washington boulevards yesterday morning, watching intently.
When a man in a GMC Yukon headed east on Tresser ran a red light, Officers Todd Lobraico and Chris Brown turned on their lights and followed him.
They pulled over the driver near Tresser Boulevard and Atlantic Street and gave him a $114 ticket for failure to obey a traffic control signal.
Lobraico handed the man the ticket, then stepped away from the SUV. The driver admitted he ran the light, Lobraico said.
"He said, 'You got me,' " the officer said.
It was the sixth ticket for running a red light or making an illegal right turn on red that the officers handed out in two hours patrolling the area. They also issued one ticket for failing to yield to a pedestrian in the crosswalk.
"We're targeting, especially in the downtown area, right turns on red and any motor vehicle violations," said Capt. William Mullin, head of the patrol division.
Officers also watched for failure to yield the right of way to pedestrians in a crosswalk, which carries a $93 fine, Mullin said.
Lobraico and Brown, who both joined the department in 1996, said they try to do traffic enforcement a few times a week. The prime time to find violators is 8 a.m., but yesterday they started at 9:15 a.m.
For most of the morning, they were parked on the sidewalk at the southwest corner of Tresser and Washington.
"You can't do this with a patrol car because there's nowhere to put the car," Brown said. "So you can only do this on a motorcycle."
At that intersection, no right turns on red are allowed, and drivers are not supposed to turn if a pedestrian is halfway across the crosswalk, Brown said.
"Even if they have a green light, they are not supposed to make right-hand turns if there is a pedestrian in the crosswalk," Brown said. "You have to wait for the pedestrian to clear the crosswalk or your half of the highway before you proceed."
But pedestrians don't always have the right of way, he said. They, too, must wait for the proper signal. Pedestrians who fail to obey the walk signal may be ticketed for improper use of a highway, he said.
After pulling over the Yukon, the officers moved to Tresser Boulevard and Atlantic Street, where they watched traffic from the southeast corner.
When a man in a black BMW whizzed through a red light, the officers let him go. The man technically ran the red light but they didn't stop him because he started through the intersection when the light was yellow, they said.
Lobraico said people act as if the yellow light means speed up, not slow down.
As Brown watched, a man in a Jeep Cherokee turned right from Atlantic onto Tresser and almost mowed down a pedestrian. The officer took off after the Jeep, stopping the driver near the Stamford Town Center mall.
When Brown returned, he said he gave the man a $93 ticket.
"He cut right in front of the guy trying to cross the street," he said. "The pedestrian almost had to come to a stop."
Brown pointed to a sign on the corner that states, "Turning vehicles yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk."
Police are trying to teach people to follow that law, Brown said.
A pedestrian and a bicyclist passing by said they have had good luck in the crosswalks.
"I think they work quite well," Pete Torrano, who works at the Stamford train station, said of the walk signals. "You press the button and you wait."
The biggest problem is that pedestrians don't want to wait for the signal and walk before it changes, Torrano said.
"Actually, I find them very effective," said Michael Cody, who was riding his bicycle. "In fact, I think they are quite pedestrian-friendly."
Lobraico said he tries to have fun with people and they usually thank him for saving their lives. Brown said he tries to be as nice as possible when he pulls people over.
more on red lights...
Cops enforcing laws OTHER than speeding!!!Safety effort launched after too many people ran red lights
By Mark Ginocchio
Staff Writer
Published August 26 2005
The message safety advocates want to get out this week is simple: Red means stop.
National Stop on Red Week, a campaign designed to alert motorists about the dangers of running traffic stoplights, kicks off tomorrow.
Motorists who ran red lights caused more than 206,000 intersection accidents nationwide in 2003, with 934 fatalities, according to the Federal Highway Safety Administration.
It will take more than a week to end the epidemic of running red lights, members of the group said.
"We advocate increasing public awareness but we're also campaigning for red-light cameras to correct this problem," said Chris Galm, spokesman for the National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C.
Red-light cameras, which photograph motorists as they run through an intersection, are used by more than 110 communities in 20 states, but not Connecticut. A bill was proposed in this year's legislative session to install the cameras statewide; it was approved by the Judiciary Committee but never voted on by the General Assembly.
"People want traffic laws toughly enforced, as long as it's not against them," said state Rep. Robert Farr, R-West Hartford, one of the lawmakers who pushed for the bill. "These would help enforce the law uniformly. There's no dispute of whether or not you violated the law."
Nationally, fatal motor vehicle crashes at traffic signals increased 13.6 percent from 1993 to 2003, outpacing the 6.6 percent increase in other fatal crashes, according to data from the Federal Highway Safety Administration.
Communities that have traffic cameras at intersections usually see a 25 percent to 30 percent reduction in crashes, Galm said. In Savannah, Ga., for example, crashes decreased by 20 percent and red-light violations decreased by 60 percent since 2003.
Less than 1 percent of the 21,000 tickets issued were appealed, Galm said.
A 2002 study in New Haven found there were 870 red-light violations in 48 hours at three intersections, Galm said. That's one violation every three minutes.
A poll taken by the campaign found 95 percent of motorists say they fear being hit by a red-light runner when they enter an intersection.
Though few groups question the effectiveness of cameras, some lawmakers and civil liberties groups oppose them because they think they violate a driver's privacy, Galm said.
Officials from the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union yesterday did not return calls seeking comment.
"There is no privacy issue," Farr said. "It only takes a picture of you if you violate the law."
Until a law is passed to allow the cameras, other things must be done to try to eliminate red light violations, state officials said.
"There are the three e's -- education, enforcement and engineering," said Jack Carey, manager of traffic engineering for the state Department of Transportation. "On the engineering side, a lot can be done. Mainly, we need to make sure the clearance time of an intersection is timed properly."
The clearance time is based on traffic volume, the length of the intersection and the speed limit, he said.
But Stamford traffic engineer Mani Poola said there is no simple way to cut back on red-light violators.
"We can only do so much," Poola said. "Driver behavior we cannot change."
I am glad to read how they are enforcing this so car. The officers seem to be somewhat reasonable and not just going after people for “running yellows” but are actually running reds. One of my BIG pet peeves is people that have NO respect for pedestrians in the crosswalk. This seams to be one of the reasons it is mostly illegal to make a right on red anymore. It’s a case of people not doing what they are doing, so everyone is punished.
Its also nice to see in the second article that the state (to some degree) is recognizing that they have to make the yellow light long enough to safely pass through the intersections. There are a few intersections in this area where I was UNDER the traffic light when it turned yellow, and before I cleared the intersection on the other side the light was already red. It was physically impossible not to run a yellow light at that intersection!
