Has Wilmington’s red-light program reduced accidents at intersections?
The quick answer is: Who knows? The city did a study several years ago that analyzed a number of camera locations for the three years before and three years after cameras were installed. The study, although it wasn’t entirely scientific, showed a 30 percent reduction in angle, or T-bone, accidents at those intersections. Those are the most dangerous crashes. Surprisingly, it also showed a reduction in rear-end crashes by about 20 percent. “That was contrary to the trend we’d seen nationally,” said Don Bennett, the city’s traffic engineering manager who oversees the red-light camera program. Some studies in other locations have shown an increase in rear-end crashes, mainly because drivers slam on their brakes to avoid tickets. The city hasn’t done any studies in the past few years. Studies across the country have produced mixed results. While some have shown cameras decrease red-light running (and therefore the likelihood of bad crashes), others have indicated that the cameras increase
