My personal anti-red light ticketing soapbox

Oh, it's on... Temecula ---- The numbers seem to support the belief of Temecula officials that motorists still aren't getting the message: stop running red lights. Well maybe because the miles of traffic on the only three main streets causes people to try to sneak through a light that's a little too yellow. A while back when I was going to Boston, the fetching Mrs. Wookie and I timed it... it took nearly 30 minutes to go 1.5 miles from the major intersection by our house to the freeway. In fact I ended up missing my flight because of that and the 15 freeway needing 2 more lanes in each direction. Oh and luckily enough there's median a plenty to build 2 more lanes in each direction. None of that carpool lane crap. Real lanes. The city has had a plan in place for several years to target the problem, called the Stop Light Abuse Program. SLAP. Really? Did we have a Kindergarten class name this program? I wonder if anyone has SLAPped one of these cops sitting at the lights. And it's been in place for "several years"? Guess it hasn't worked very well, huh? Since July 2003, when he started keeping track of red-light tickets being issued, Temecula police Sgt. Mike Pino says 11,741 citations have been issued ---- almost 400 a month. That average held constant last year, Pino said, and so far this year with more than 300 tickets already written in January and eight days left in the month. 400 a month after you started SLAPping motorists with ticky-tack tickets with no sign of people stopping? Then maybe it's time you start thinking of another solution since this one's obviously not working the way you wanted. Temecula's City Council has, over the last few years, discussed the possibility of installing red-light cameras at problem intersections, as Murrieta has recently begun doing, but decided instead to spend that money on more motorcycle officers to catch violators. That's not exactly what I was thinking about. I'm thinking more along the lines of better city planning so that we have more than three main streets. If you can't do that maybe consider widening the three roads we've got. And how about NO RED LEFT TURN ARROWS!! After a green turn arrow, allow motorists to turn when safe, yielding to oncoming traffic. Most of the lights here have turn arrows, 95% of which are completely unnecessary. Let people yield to oncoming traffic when turning!! It works in a fairly large portion of our nation, so I'm pretty sure it might work here too. Whoever laid these streets out and decided every intersection needs a red and green turn arrow is the one we ought to be holding responsible for all the traffic. City Councilman Chuck Washington says he's frustrated that drivers still aren't following the law. Well Chuck, motorists are pissed about a half mile back up at intersections of people waiting to make left turns (also see aforementioned 30 minutes to go 1.5 miles). I noticed we finally got a deal with CalTrans to expand a couple bridges. We need more, wider through streets, not more cops ticketing people at intersections. Work on that, will ya? And void out my ticket while you're at it...