Posted on 10/05/2015 6:26:18 AM PDT by george76
Redflex red light cameras and speed camera deployments have dropped by half as municipalities reject automated enforcement.
Only a few years ago, Redflex Traffic Systems was at the top of its game. Stock analysts saw unlimited growth potential in the Australian firm that once operated more red light cameras and speed cameras in the United States than anyone else. Redflex was so confident about its bright future that it rebuffed Macquarie Bank's 2011 buyout offer at $2.75 a share.
Today, Redflex trades at 24 cents per share, a top executive has been found guilty on federal corruption charges and the firm faces the prospect of being fined up to $300 million for contract fraud in Chicago, Illinois. In its annual report released Tuesday, the company sought to lure investors back with promises of making a comeback.
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Early on, growth was a given for Redflex. In 2003, the company ran 135 red light cameras in the United States. In just five years, that figure grew nearly ten-fold to 1267.
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From a high of over 2000 cameras in 2008, the number of automated ticketing machines fell to just 1081 operational cameras in 2015. The company did not achieve the hoped-for managerial stability, as none of the firm's current directors have lasted more than three years. The firm's top executives were replaced in the wake of scandal and
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewspaper.com ...
They should be able to start growing when they start bribing local municipal staffers and politicians again.
Correct me if m wrong, but haven’t studies shown that safety increases dramatically by extending yellow light by as little as a half second?
Trying to shake loose the memory ports this morning.
Hopefully they stay in business, as they're utterly mismanaged and ineffective. They go out of business, they might get replaced by a company that actually could get something done.
Likely, extra short yellow lights increases revenue to the city & Redflex plus increases the number of rear end accidents.
That would help. I also think a 1-second delay between one light turning red and the cross-traffic light turning green would do wonders.
Of course, such an approach would not give the municipality the opportunity to make any revenue, so I doubt they’d consider it.
Regards,
When the red light camera companies started showing up in local areas all of the sudden high ranking LEO’s were retiring to go to work guess where? My state put a huge dent in their profits for the camera snitch by passing a law making right on red captured by the camera a non ticket offense. An officer could nail you for it if he was patrolling and saw a roll and go stop but not the camera company. Over half the “profit” was gone and soon most of the cameras. Oh and traffic flow got back to normal.
I would say that many municipalities want to do the right thing, which is why these guys are having so many issues, as their equipment gets yanked out.
If yellow light was a well publicized random length I bet that would help.
You're not wrong, also a short all red overlap dramatically reduces feared T-bone accidents.
Not likely, absolutely.
That decreases safety by creating sudden stops.
Well publicised doesn’t mean people get the message - that requires people to pay attention to something other than FB.
They were not just used for red lights. Sioux City, IA placed them on the interstate at the edge of the city, isolated strip at the time, and cut the speed drastically in a short distance. Made tons of money off tourists traveling through the city on the interstate. Warnings were on several travel sites and even AAA at the time.
I’d like the throw the families of redflex corporate into wood chippers.
One I so enjoy is the instant trip light at the bottom of a steep hill on a four lane divided heavily traveled road to allow one or two vehicles to enter the main road when NO light would have allowed the two to enter without stopping twenty or more vehicles on the main road.
A dangerous example of how bad this is can be seen in the one hundred foot long skid marks from eighteen wheelers attempting to stop when the light suddenly turns.
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