Video from an intersection in Roselle Park, one of six locations cited by Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon as shortchanging motorists on yellow light time, resulting in more tickets tied to camera systems. (Click to enlarge)
Topics of interest covered in local and regional media today…
Tuesday’s New York Times has a feature article on the fate of the Sea Gull’s Nest on Sandy Hook. The restaurant hasn’t reopened since Hurricane Sandy.
From the story:
For a quarter-century, the ritual never changed.
As the sun began to set over Sandy Hook Bay each summer evening, a man with a white beard grabbed a microphone at a seaside restaurant and began talking about pride and sacrifice, patriotism and service. He invoked the nation’s war dead, welcomed visitors from other countries, asked everyone to stand up, take off their hats, hold hands with the strangers at the next table, and give thanks.
“The freedom you enjoy did not come free,” Ed Segall said. Then he led everyone in singing “God Bless America” with the song invariably ending, to applause and a few tears, just as the sun dipped over the horizon.
Both the Asbury Park Press and the Star-Ledger have coverage of a press conference held by 12th-district Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon of Little Silver to call out what he considers problems with the timing of traffic lights equipped with cameras.
From the Press:
At least a half-dozen of the state’s red-light cameras are shortchanging signals by anywhere from a tenth to a quarter of a second — about the same time it takes to blink — but it’s enough, one lawmaker said, to invalidate as many as 30 percent of the tickets from the devices.
Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth, said the findings of an expert he hired to review more than a dozen red-light cameras prove New Jersey’s pilot program should come to an end.
From the Sledger:
“Not much shocks me, but this did shock me,” O’Scanlon said.
New Jersey follows a standard that calls for the timing of yellow lights to be set at one second for every 10 mph of the posted speed limit. For example, a yellow light on a road with a 50 mph speed limit should allow motorists 5 seconds to pass through the intersection before the light changes to red.
By any standard, New Jersey fails, O’Scanlon said.
In videos shown today during a news conference in Tinton Falls, yellow lights were short by a quarter of a second, robbing motorists of precious time to get through intersections before being ticketed, O’Scanlon said.
Among towns on the Green, none employ the cameras, though Shrewsbury officials have talked about installing them.
