Speed cameras may be on the road back

Posted by Benji Riggins on March 4, 2011 under Interesting Info | Be the First to Comment

N.C. legislator wants to use revenue from the tickets to help schools.

Automated speed cameras had a brief history in North Carolina, but they might have a big future.

The state would start using cameras to nab speeders around schools and road construction sites under new legislation filed by Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat.

Glazier wants a pilot program to authorize speed cameras in up to 15 school zones and 15 highway work zones at a time. It would continue for 15 years, with the potential to generate millions of dollars from speeding tickets worth $125 to $250 apiece.

That brings up the purpose of Glazier’s bill: Use speed cameras to repay a big state debt to N.C. schools.

A 2008 ruling by the N.C. Court of Appeals found that $748 million in various civil penalties collected across the state over nine years should have been paid to local schools – but wasn’t – under language in the state Constitution. So far, the legislature has paid down only $18 million of that debt.

Under Glazier’s proposal, 25 percent of the speed camera ticket proceeds would go straight to an existing schools fund, to use for driver education. The other 75 percent would be paid to local schools to “satisfy the judgment” against the state in the 2008 ruling.

“We believe this is a great way to do it,” said Leanne Winner, spokeswoman for the N.C. School Boards Association, the plaintiff in that court case. She said her group helped Glazier draft the bill.

“This will generate dollars to help the state pay off the judgment, and it will provide safety in areas that we know are very unsafe: work zones on state-maintained roads, and school zones.”

Speed cameras measure how fast a car is moving, as a live officer would do with a radar gun, and snap photos of the speeders’ license plates. The car owners get tickets in the mail, along with photos and other evidence.

Police in Charlotte used 22 speed cameras to nab 43,000 violators in 2005. Authorities said the cameras made city streets safer, with less speeding and fewer crashes. Highway safety experts at the University of North Carolina said the same thing.

But a ruling in a related court case forced Charlotte to switch off its speed cameras in 2006, after using them for only two years.

Charlotte had used most of the fees collected from speeders to finance the camera program technology. The court said that money belonged instead to the schools. City leaders said they couldn’t afford to start spending local tax money for the cameras.

Charlotte was the only city with speed cameras, but it was one of several forced in the same case to stop using similar cameras to catch red-light runners. (Raleigh and Cary still have red-light cameras because the law that authorized them has not faced a similar court challenge.)

Glazier’s bill proposes civil penalties close to what a driver would face with a regular ticket: $250 for speeding in a highway work zone, $125 for speeding in a school zone. No insurance points would go on the driver’s record. Signs would be posted to warn drivers of the speed cameras ahead.

There are plenty of questions about how the camera system would work and how much money it would raise. Glazier could not be reached for comment Monday.

Reduced speed limits around schools are posted only for school days – and only for a few hours a day, when children are walking and biking to school in the morning and home in the afternoon. Other states have used speed cameras to reduce accidents around schools, Winner said.

DOT does not cut speed limits around road-work sites as frequently as it did in past years, and it long ago dropped the “highway work zone” language still used in state law. Nowadays, DOT engineers are likely to post reduced speed limits – with flashing signs that warn of $250 penalties – for only a few hours or days at a time.

Mikael Gross, a legislative staff attorney who helped draft Glazier’s bill, said it would be up to DOT to decide where and how to use the cameras.

Glazier would have DOT pay for the cameras, estimated at $11 million a year, from its Highway Fund. DOT would recoup the cost by reducing money it now transfers to schools for driver education, about $31 million a year, Gross said.

By Bruce Siceloff
bruce.siceloff@newsobserver.com
Posted: Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/02/22/2081823/speed-cameras-may-be-on-the-road.html#ixzz1Enj0PuBE