Drivers' newest nemesis -- stop-sign cameras
Thinking about rolling through that stop sign the next
time nobody’s looking? Think again.
On top of red-light cameras and speed cameras, some
jurisdictions are starting to install stop-sign cameras in their seemingly
never-ending quest to monitor drivers and catch them in the act of some
ticket-able offense. California has already rolled out cameras at stop signs.
Maryland and the nation's capital could be next.
Maryland right now allows only red-light cameras, but the
town of Glen Echo wants the state legislature to expand government’s reach to
include photo-ticketing for intersections with stop signs.
Glen Echo is just a leafy, suburban Washington town
wanting only one camera for an intersection that handles roughly 200,000
vehicles a year.
But the country’s biggest motorist-advocacy group has
concerns about changes to Maryland law leading to a proliferation of the
still-new enforcement technology.
“This could be the camel’s nose under the tent,” AAA
mid-Atlantic spokesman John B. Townsend II told FoxNews.com.
The District of Columbia is already considering a plan to
spend $5.8 million on a traffic-enforcement plan that would include stop-sign
cameras and ones that could detect and ticket vehicles speeding up to get
through a yellow light.
Critics of such programs argue they are more about
generating cash than making roads safer, including in the District, where some
of the cameras are on four-lane roads with no homes or schools in sight. The
city’s network of cameras to nab speeders and red-light runners last year took
in roughly $55 million, according to AAA.
“The push for more automated traffic enforcement has
nothing to do with revenue,” Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said this spring in
support of expanding the automated program. “I'm motivated to promote traffic
safety because I don't want to see anymore fatal accident victims who have been
ejected from their shoes by the force of the crash impact.”
Beyond more stop-sign cameras being added to the
thousands of other cameras already in more than 550 communities across the
country, Townsend has concerns about the technology and how Maryland
legislators might rework the statute.
He says the law now reads that all four wheels must come
to a stop.
“That’s so nebulous that nobody knows what you mean,”
Townsend said. “And for how long do you have to be stopped?”
Still, Townsend points out that 40 percent of all fatal
crashes in the country occur at intersections with stop signs.
Such cameras are already in the Santa Monica Mountains
just west of the city of Los Angeles, which last year shut off its 32 red-light
cameras amid questions about their effectiveness and problems collecting fines.
The seven cameras in the mountain parks -- from the
Hollywood Hills to the Malibu coast -- took in a reported $2.4 million in
fiscal 2010, despite posted warnings.
Comments
Post a Comment