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This Page is Culver City Documents - Set # 4

New 1-26-03, updated 2-10-16

Signal Timing - Yellow Length

I.  Was Culver City's Early "Mistake" an "Inadvertent" One?

The evidence shows that they were well aware of the new law prescribing minimum yellow times (SB 667, codified as VC 21455.7, effective Jan. 1, 2002), but failed to bring their cameras into compliance with it.

The police were aware of it. During the October 2002 trial of an August 2002 Sepulveda / Green Valley violation, there was the following testimony:

Defendant: Would this system be in compliance with California law?
Sgt. Corrales: Yes
Defendant: At that time?
Sgt. Corrales: Yes, in my opinion it is, yes.
Defendant: Are you familiar with the general rule of thumb, which would be a little bit longer?
Sgt. Corrales: General rule of thumb what?
Defendant: In terms of it being 3.6 seconds.
Sgt. Corrales: I assume you are talking about a memo put out by DOT. Starting January first of this year the Vehicle Code requires that a system at an equipped intersection be in compliance with the Department of Transportation Traffic Manual. When it was first a senate bill, I believe it was a senate bill, when it was first introduced, I made numerous calls into our traffic engineer, told him about it, to assure that we were in compliance. He assured me that we were. When it was getting close to the year and I heard that the senate bill had passed I called him again. Then afterwards when it definitely became law, he assured me that our system definitely was in compliance with the Department of Transportation Traffic Manual.

And the city council was aware of the new law. I noticed that the printed city council agendas mention that the council gets, as part of their agenda packet, weekly bulletins ("Priority Focus") from the California League of Cities.

I then went to the League's website and reviewed "Priority Focus" for 2001, and found that SB 667 was mentioned in at least six editions, sometimes as a Hot Bill.

The "Priority Focus" description of SB 667 was short and and to the point (like VC 21455.7 itself).

II.  2015 Signal Timing Charts

In late 2015 we received the following timing charts:

Wash/Beet
Wash/Cent
Wash/Sawt
Wash/Helms
Wash/LaCien
Slau/Buck
Sepul/Green
Sepul/Slau
Sepul/Mach
Jeff/Cota
Jeff/Over
Jeff/Duq