Fuming Cary ticketee knows how to count

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.

"The person on the telephone was so sarcastic. He said, ‘Ma’am, do you know how to count? One thousand one, one thousand two ...’" (Note the official endorsement of the Road Worrier's favorite timing method.)

Joostema got out there with her own stopwatch -- actually, a kitchen timer with a second sweep -- and concluded that the yellow lasted less than 3 seconds.

Meanwhile, Nikki Parker just got her ticket in the mail for one of the camera corners on Kildaire Farm Road. "What is your advice about fighting it?" she asks.

My advice: Get out there with a stopwatch. If that yellow light really does last 4 seconds, I'll buy Parker an ice cream cone (I forgot to tell her this part -- somebody let her know if you see her).

But I won't pay her Cary red-light camera ticket. I still have to pay my own red-light camera ticket in Raleigh -- where 4 seconds really is 4 seconds.

Sid Marsh has a different take on the fleeting-yellow hubbub. He blames the problem on people driving way over the 35mph speed limit -- a big problem on Kildaire Farm Road -- and paying too little attention:

Not only is excessive speed evident on Kildaire, but many drivers will ignore a yellow light from a football field’s length or more away from the light.

I have not timed the yellow light, but there is plenty of time for people to stop if they would pay attention and obey the speed limit. I venture to guess the same is true at the Kildaire – Maynard intersection.

If the people who are getting the tickets for running a red light are some of the same people who blow through active school zones, they are getting some of what they deserve.