As I mentioned in an above post, the city conspires with the company that makes and installs the cameras and artificially shortens the yellow light in order to generate more citations, which = more revenue, which = more $$$ in fines, which are then divvied up between the company (often a large defense-type contractor like Lockheed-Martin or Allied Signal or the like) and the municipality where it’s installed.
They can also alter the signal timing (not just shortening the yellow time) so that drivers hit as many red lights as possible, under the theory that the more red lights a driver hits, the more likely it is that they'll run one of them.
And signal maintenance is also an issue.
A couple of years ago, I was waiting to make a left turn at a signal that I make a left turn at every day. The signal went through two entire cycles and never gave me a green light to make my left turn.
Obviously a bad detector. I called VDOT to report the problem.
You might think that they would consider this a priority and fix it quickly.
Not VDOT. Despite me calling them at least 4 times to report the problem, it took them over a month to fix it, and I made a left turn against a red light every day while it was broken.
Imagine if that signal had a red light camera?
EDIT: And another example of Virginia-style signal maintenance. Back in the early to mid 2000s, I read a newspaper article about someone vandalizing a traffic signal. They broke into the cabinet and cut every wire inside.
The police chief of the city or town (can't remember which one it is and I can't find the article online, think it was either Warrenton or Culpeper) said, "Yea. You could sit at that light for 20 minutes and it wouldn't change".
So let me get this straight. The locality KNOWS the traffic signal is broken, since the police chief knows it's broken and presumably would have told the public works department, assuming that they didn't already know, and they did NOTHING to fix it until someone get fed up enough to vandalize the traffic signal wiring??
Never change, Virginia. Never change. Just like your broken traffic signals you can't be bothered to fix.