When you see a yellow caution light at an intersection, you're forced to make a split-second decision: Do you stop or push through? Some cities give you more time to make that decision than others and these days, what you decide does not just affect your safety. With red light cameras now in the mix, it also impacts your wallet.
So just how much time are red light camera cities giving you to make up your mind? Kingsport, Johnson City, and Jonesborough all say since installing their cameras, they have not decreased any of their yellow light times. In fact, in a handful of cases, they've given drivers more time to make it through a yellow light. But Jonesborough's yellow lights are more forgiving than the rest.
"Before we raised it to five seconds, the yellow light was set between three-point-two and four-point-two," Jonesborough Public Safety Maj. Natalie Hilton said. "Going 45 miles an hour, it's kind of hard to make that kind of a decision in that short of time."
Compared to the other cities, Jonesborough's caution lights, all set at five seconds, seem to stay yellow for an eternity.
"It drops the amount of people running the red light," Maj. Hilton said.
That's partly why Tennessee's oldest town increased the times when the town began writing tickets.
"Just to give the driver that extra second to get through the intersection," she added.
Despite the lengthier light, the "Model City" believes it is the model when it comes to caution light times. Yellow lights in Kingsport range from three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half seconds, just enough time for drivers to make up their minds according to Kingsport Public Works Assistant Director Michael Thompson.
"I think arbitrarily lengthening yellow times also sends the wrong message," Thompson said. "If you start doing that, then people start thinking it's okay to run yellow lights and you're really training people to do that...If you are approaching an intersection and do not feel like you can safely stop, you need to proceed through the intersection."
For the most part, Johnson City's yellow lights fall in between the ones in Jonesborough and Kingsport.
"Some of the neighboring towns do have longer times or shorter times and we just try to stick with the standards," Johnson City Traffic Engineering Manager Anthony Todd said.
In Johnson City, those standards range from four to four-and-a-half seconds.
"A yellow light that is too short will catch you in a situation where you can't make a reasonable decision," Todd said. "If you have a yellow light that's too long, people tend to use it as a green light and so they begin to push the limits."
So a word of caution, in the Tri-Cities, just about no two yellow lights are the same. That means next time you see yellow, don't overthink it.
"Just go ahead and make a reasonable decision as though they are all the same no matter where you're at," Todd said.
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