Senate Scuppers Speed Cameras

Two bills about traffic cameras skipped through the Senate last week. Both bills, sponsored by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, are nominally intended to deter city councils from using speed cameras as a cash cow but could just make it too expensive and too much hassle to install them where they are needed. Senate Bill 125 caps fines at $75, while SB 1119 forces cities to undertake studies to prove that a camera was essential before they could install it. This includes considering the option of digging up the road and redesigning it, rather than actually bothering with the cheaper, quicker option of installing a camera.

Of course, this would be good if speed cameras don't work to cut the number and severity of traffic accidents. But they do. As part of a major study in the UK by their national Department of Transport, control of speed cameras was handed over to local government. After four years of monitoring roads with speed cameras, they found:

- The number of people breaking the speed limit by 15 mph or more at fixed-camera sites dropped by 91%.

- There was a 22% drop in the total number of injury-causing accidents, with 43% fewer people being killed or injured.

And for anyone looking at that all-important bottom line, the study found that for each pound spent, the government saved 2.7. Now obviously that figure includes crazy nonsense like the National Health Service (what's left of it), but there's some data there to mull over.