Ran a red light, dont no if there were cameras?

Question

today i ran a red light it was about 530 pm and there were these camera looking things but idk if they were, i hear about things that are sensors that make the lights change and they were on the top of the street lights, which people say they are there because of cold weather and i live in wisconsin which makes sense. does this sound right???

Answer 1

It could have been a camera. Most traffic cameras in North America are located a 15ft - 50ft back from the corner and have a very square box that houses the camera installed on a distinctly square post.

There are a few types of sensors you can see on a traffic light. If it looks like a really really tiny traffic light on a post then is might be for emergency vehicles to get an emergency green to free up the traffic or emergency red to stop other traffic.

If you say a box mounted with a little circle, it's probably for traffic priority (such as busses).

If you saw a weird shaped semi-square round box on a lamp post then it's probably a speed radar sensor. This sensor might be used just for statistics, or to catch speeders.

If you see a lot of dark coloured lines on the ground (shaped as a square or circle) then it helps to instruct the traffic light to run more efficiently. These are also commonly used for red-light cameras and intersection, speed photo.

Or you might see something that looks like a surveillance camera on a post, pointed at a really idiodic place. These are used for signal timing, detection and maybe red lights.

So what does this mean? Well just sit tight. If you got a ticket it will come. Just remember that the cameras that actually give tickets are huge and very very boxy.

Answer 2

the registered owner of the car will get a ticket in the mail in about a week if the cameras caught you.

Answer 3

Most likely they are cameras. There are sensors, but those are for the emergency vehicles that have transponders on them. They change the light to red to stop the traffic so they can get through.

Answer 4

it could go either way, you just don't know now a day's. In 3 to 5 day's you will get a ticket if it was a cop's camera.