In a 36-14 vote, the Senate gave preliminary approval today to a bill that would kill red-light cameras in the last remaining North Carolina cities that use them: Wilmington, Knightdale, Cary and Raleigh. [4/8/11 update: see today's story with reader comments.]

The bill sponsor, Republican Sen. Don East of Pilot Mountain, is a former Winston-Salem police officer who argues that drivers should be able to cross-examine the officer to gives them a traffic ticket.

“You ought to be able to say, ‘Officer, are you right sure that light was red?’” East said during floor debate. His Senate Bill 187 will move to the House if it passes a final Senate vote next week.

Sen. Josh Stein, a Raleigh Democrat, argued that local officials should be allowed to decide whether to use the cameras. He cited crash statistics that credit red-light cameras with reducing right-angle collisions, caused when a driver runs a red light, at two busy corners in downtown Raleigh. ... [MORE]

State Sen. Don East, who says he wrote lots of traffic tickets during nearly 20 years as a police officer in Winston-Salem, wants to outlaw red-light cameras.

He does not propose merely that Raleigh, Cary and a few other towns stop ticketing drivers whose cars are photographed running red lights.  A bill he filed Wednesday would make it a misdemeanor "for any person to operate a traffic control photographic system in this State."

"I'm a retired cop, and I believe if you're charged with running a red light, you ought to be able to cross-examine somebody," East said. "You can't cross-examine a camera." ... [MORE]

Brian Ceccarelli of Apex has published a 33-page illustrated treatise, filed a 16-page class-action lawsuit (see today's story with reader comments), and created a website stuffed with documentation -- all devoted to his crusade for longer yellow lights at Cary's red-light camera intersections.

He explained his campaign in an e-mail message, with an unusual appeal to a higher law: ... [MORE]

Is it safe to turn left when you see a flashing yellow arrow? That's the question for drivers around Chapel Hill, as the town begins installing a signal that is unfamiliar to many drivers.

The answer is that it's legal, but it's up to the driver to make sure it's safe.

The first yellow left-turn arrow popped up a couple of weeks ago in the left-turn lane at NC 54's intersecton with Hamilton Road.

After a solid green arrow -- which means that left-turn drivers have the right of way -- a flashing yellow arrow appears.

The flashing yellow left arrow means this: It's still legal to turn left, but only after you yield right-of-way to oncoming traffic and pedestrians.

Traffic engineers have been promoting the yellow arrow to replace the solid green ball for left-turn traffic at similar intersections. Both mean the same thing for left-turners: It's legal to turn left, after you yield to pedestrians and oncoming drivers. ... [MORE]

It was about a year ago that Helen Joostema got her red-light camera ticket in the mail from the town of Cary. A candid camera had snapped her as she turned left from Kildaire Farm Road onto Cary Parkway.

"I'm still fuming," she said on the phone today after she read this week's Road Worrier. "I thought I had gotten over it until I read your article."

Joostema didn't think the fleeting yellow light had given her enough time to stop safely before the light turned red, especially with another car right on her tail.

"If I just jammed on the brakes, I would have been hit from the back," she said.

She dialed the phone number on her ticket. She talked to a rude guy who insisted that the yellow light lasted 4 seconds. . . .

OK, maybe the Road Worrier's crude method of counting time won't hold up in traffic court ("Yellow is fleeting on Cary traffic light").

If the Road Worrier wants to do a more credible job of counting traffic signal times, reader Paul Ferguson points out that even cheap digital watches have timer options. Agreed.

But you get the idea: When you only get a brief yellow-light warning that you'll have to stop soon, it's easy to get caught running a red light.

How brief is the yellow light warning at some intersections in Cary's red-light camera program?

Cary says 3 or 4 seconds. I'm skeptical. And some readers are skeptical, too.

I really believe that the yellow traffic light at Kildaire Farm and Maynard goes off within 1 or 2 seconds - Trupti Desai . . .