Pennsylvania | Traffic Law
Legal Question
Yellow light Duration
Hi,
I was driving down a road with a 35 mph speed limit and was approaching a traffic signal. It was green and no cars were in front of me so I glanced over to the passenger seat for about 1/2 second ( to get a cd on the passenger seat). When I looked up the light was yellow, so I figured it must have just turned yellow and kept going at the same speed.
As you might guess the light turned quickly red and I received a ticket. I thought the light turned very quickly to red and upon further investigation I researched what the traffic code says about yellow light intervals.
What I found was the MUTCD and ITE (consultants to Penndot) have guidelines on what a yellow light duration should be. The yellow light duration is based on the speed limit of the road. For a 35 mph road the yellow light duratin should be about 3.5 seconds.
So I took a digital stopwatch (measures in 1/100th of a second) to the light in question. I timed the yellow light duration 15 times and the average yellow duration was 2.76 seconds. I timed 3 other lights next to the light in question..onw was 2.8 seconds, two others were 3.8 seconds. Can I use this info in fighting the ticket?
Thanks,
Francis
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