NEW YORK – Do speed cameras really make New York City streets safer?
They’ve been around for a decade, but the city now has more than 2,000 speed cameras in about 750 school zones. By the time you see the light, it’s already too late; it’ll cost you $50, but you won’t get points on your license.
Critics say speed cameras are just a money-making scheme
Many drivers told Dick Brennan of CBS News New York that they feel like speed cameras are the new “Big Brother,” a kind of high-tech pickpocket.
“Honestly, I think it’s ridiculous to take people’s money,” said Kaelan Milheireo of Kearny, New Jersey.
“They’re going to make money off people doing nothing,” said Nicole Fulmore of West New York, New Jersey.
“It’s just a big trap and a money-making scheme. And unfortunately, that’s what this is about. It’s really not about safety,” said Jay Beeber of the National Motorists Association.
“If you lower the speed limit and people are safer, how can you be against it?” Brennan asked.
“So, the first thing I would say is that simply lowering the speed limit doesn’t really make people safer,” Beeber said.
To prove his point, Beeber took Brennan for a drive in the Bronx.
“So this is a school zone, 25 miles per hour with a camera. What do you think of this road?” Brennan asked.
“This road is not designed for people to be comfortable driving 25 miles per hour. This road is designed for people to be comfortable driving 35 or 45 miles per hour. It has two lanes. There’s no traffic coming in the opposite direction,” Beeber said.
Worse, he says, since the city issues violations for speeding more than 10 miles per hour, you can get a ticket for going 36 miles per hour in a 25-mile zone. Critics say authorities should crack down on drivers who speed on freeways, which they say pose the greatest danger, such as people who drive 70 or 80 miles per hour on the Long Island Expressway.
Beeber also believes the $50 tickets target those who can least afford it.
“You don’t need speed cameras. You don’t need a lot of speeding tickets. You lay out a road for 25 miles an hour, and people generally drive at the speed you laid out the road for,” he said.
Many people actually agree on this point.
“When you narrow roads and lanes, you actually slow down traffic,” said Senator Andrew Gounardes.
Many city planners, including in Manhattan, are making the streets narrower.
Ministry of Transport: Since the speed cameras have been in operation around the clock, violations have decreased
However, Gounardes still says it’s about enforcement, and the city says it has the numbers on its side: since Radar cameras are now in operation around the clockThe Ministry of Transport announced that violations had fallen by 30% – at some intersections they had even fallen by 96%.
“They reduce speeding everywhere on our roads, especially near sensitive areas such as schools,” said Gounardes.
According to Gounardes, most violations are one-off violations.
“Most people, about 70 percent of people who get a speeding ticket, don’t get another one because they’ve learned their lesson,” he said.
Gounardes has even proposed a bill that would require people who get six or more speeding tickets a year to have a speed limiter installed in their car that would actually force drivers to obey the speed limit. He’s had a demonstration and says it works well.
“If you continue to drive unsafely, we will force you to drive safely,” he said. “And if you don’t want to pay the $50, I have the simplest solution in the world. We’ve built a loophole into this law that is very simple: Don’t speed. If you don’t speed, you won’t get a ticket.”
Mary Beth Kelly of Families for Safe Streets knows how deadly the streets can be.
“It destroys families. It destroys communities,” she said.
Her husband, Carl Henry, was killed in 2006 by a city police tow truck that was turning around while he was riding his bicycle with Kelly.
“He survived for three days in intensive care and on a ventilator, then succumbed to his injuries,” Kelly said. “I felt like a bomb had gone off and we all had shrapnel in us, you know, and you carry that with you for the rest of your life.”
She dedicated her life to saving others and helped found Families for Safe Streets.
Dick Brennan
