Swedish engineer Mats Järlström has prevailed in his years-long battle against a $260 ticket, which his wife got from an automated traffic light camera in 2013. Following plenty of court drama, Järlström managed to draw the attention of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), an international advisory group in charge of traffic light timings. It is moving forward on a plan that will extend the interval of yellow lights around the globe.
Järlström, who studied electrical engineering in Sweden, challenged the ticket, arguing the timing interval for yellow lights fails to account for scenarios like a driver entering an intersection and slowing to make a turn. A slightly longer interval, he argued, would allow drivers making turns on a yellow light to exit intersections before the light turned red.