Drivers, start your (slower) engines, or else Gaithersburg is the latest jurisdiction in the Washington region to begin using speed cameras to photograph and ticket drivers exceeding posted speed limits.
The official rationale for these devices is a familiar one: Too many area drivers are speeding, and, as officials have claimed for decades, speed kills. Says Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger: “Speeding is a serious traffic problem that increases the risks of crashes, injuries and deaths. With the introduction of the Safe Speed program, we intend to make Montgomery County safer for both pedestrians and motorists.” Through Friday, there have been 15 traffic fatalities in the county this year, according to Montgomery County police spokeswoman Lucille Bauer.
The case for speed cameras is reasonable, as far as it goes, but there is more to the issue. Thereare, for example, legitimate questions about whether speed cameras actually reduce the number of people killed and injured on area streets, and whether there are more cost-efficient ways of achieving the same or better results. There also is a major concern about whether speed cameras will ultimately function more as revenue-raising devices than effective tools for increasing road safety. Too little attention has been devoted to these and other issues in the region’s public discussion on speed cameras.
By way of preliminary analysis, there is a paucity of credible data on the effectiveness of speed cameras in reducing traffic fatalities and injuries. In 2005, British researchers Paul Pilkington and Sanjay Kindra assessed 92 studies worldwide that claimed to provide credible data, but rejected all but 14 of them. Even among the 14 that met minimal standard criteria for methodological soundness, Pilkington and Kindra concluded: “Research conducted so far consistently shows that speed cameras are an effective intervention in reducing road traffic collisions and related casualties. The level of evidence is relatively poor, however, as most studies did not have satisfactory comparison groups or adequate control for potential confounders.”
In other words, the available data are inconclusive. On the financial issues, Montgomery County is now using fixed cameras at six heavily trafficked, mainly residential locations with a 35 mph posted speed limit. During a 22-day trial period in May, when the county instead used a fleet of six roving vans equipped with the speed cameras, 7,000 violations were issued. At $40 per violation, the county would receive $280,000, or nearly $13,000 per day. At the same rate of violation issuance, the county would have received more than $2.7 million from violations had the cameras been in use since New Year’s Day.
If, like D.C., Montgomery County had 56 cameras instead of just six, the revenue would be significantly higher.
