Another useful piece of info from the Newsday article I linked the other day is about the yellow light durations. Here’s a quote:
The county’s coordinator of traffic safety, Christopher Mistron, said the amber lights last about 4 seconds, on average, but vary with the speed limit and the number of lanes. The amber would average 3 seconds on a roadway where the speed limit is 30 mph, he said.
That’s for Nassau County, I’m not sure what the situation is in Suffolk, probably something similar. On my wife’s red light camera ticket the light was yellow for 3.5 seconds. My uncle also got a ticket a few weeks ago, his was yellow for 3 seconds (intersection of Nicolls Road and 347 in Suffolk).
If they’re going to nail you for differences as tiny as .2 seconds (as they did with my wife) then they have a responsibility to make it clear exactly how long the lights will be yellow for, in all situations. Not averages, not estimates, no “it depends on the number of lanes and the speed and which way the wind was blowing, and on how unbalanced our budget is this year.”