Drivers gripe about Cary's fleeting yellow light

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

The lights seem to be timed so that if you start through an intersecton on yellow the camer catches the rear of your car before you can get through the light without it turning red. - Carol Murrell

My "guilt" is iffy, at best, but I paid the ticket anyway and got on with my busy life. - Pam Bailey

Other readers have questions about the law. What's legal? How's it supposed to work?

North Carolina law says you can't enter the intersection after the light turns red. If the light turns red while you're in the intersection, you're legal. The few red-light camera tickets I've seen all show a photo of the car before it enters the intersection, with the light having turned red already, to establish that the car broke the law in the second photo -- which shows it crusing through the intersection, also under a red light.

How does it work in Raleigh's red-light camera intersections?

Jed Niffenegger of the city's traffic engineering department says Raleigh doesn't want there to be any doubt about whether you had time to avoid running that red light: "We like to have at least 4 seconds of yellow time on all our Safelight camera intersections."