TULSA -- Tulsa Police are cracking down on people running red and yellow lights during the month of August.
Officer Josh Goldstein with the Gilcrease Division said they are doing it because most of the serious crashes they respond to are because of someone running a light.
"Those are very bad accidents," Officer Goldstein said. "They cause a lot of problems for your insurance, both for fixing cars and fixing people, if not worse then somebody dies."
During a ride along, Officer Goldstein drove through Downtown Tulsa. He said that area typically has issues with people running lights.
"I may look at that light and see that it's a certain color," he explained. "It may be yellow. I know the second this turns red [the light for the cross street] turns green. There's no delay, so they'll time those. We get some accidents because of stuff like that."
Officer Goldstein explained that a yellow light violation is when a car enters an intersection while the light is yellow and it turns red before they have made it all the way through. Offenders can get up to a $200 ticket.
The red light violation is $250.
"We have an officer sit in a car and just out standing somewhere watching a light and all they have to do, and I'll just use the white car up there as an example, is say 'The white SUV northbound just committed a yellow light violation' and we'll be two blocks up that way and we'll stop them," Officer Goldstein said.
The initiative is going on throughout the month of August.
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