Coastal Branch Meeting
What Happened to the Red-Light Cameras in Wilmington?
All red-light camera programs exist only because of major math errors in the “ITE yellow change interval formula”-- a formula that has been used since 1965. The NCDOT uses this formula. These errors are responsible for 90% of red-light running and crashes. We will briefly go over the formula. We will then take a look at ITE’s changes to the formula in 2020. I was a part of those changes. The formula still has errors. The NCDOT still uses the 1965 formula. In 2023, an NCDOT director and I got together over biscuits and gravy. Afterward, the director wrote NC House Bill H189. It’s clever. Erin Paré introduced the bill and it is this bill that terminated Raleigh’s program and probably Wilmington’s too. But wait! The intrigue does not stop here. I have a much bigger whopper to tell.
Brian Ceccarelli is a licensed professional engineer. Brian’s PE is in software engineering. He has a degree in physics from the University of Arizona. He has worked the disciplines of mining, mechanical, environmental and traffic engineering. He has also worked for NASA on a Mars probe.
Ceccarelli became interested in traffic signal timing when the Town of Cary bestowed upon him a red-light camera ticket. Since then, Ceccarelli has presented the problem with the yellow change interval formula in venues from Arizona to Germany. Ceccarelli has served as an expert witness in traffic signal timing and photo-enforcement in North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and New York. As for New York, Ceccarelli recently assisted a law firm in winning a $492,000,000.00 class action against Nassau and Suffolk counties’ red-light camera programs. And as for Wilmington, you don’t see those red-light cameras anymore do you?
Complete info will be posted soon!
