The debate over Flock Cameras has reignited an older debate over speed cameras. A lot of people absolutely despise speed cameras, while others believe that it’s totally irrational to question strict enforcement of the law.
The debate reveals not so much differences in ideology as differences in political philosophies and even psychologies or anthropologies.
Here are some representative posts from the pro-speed camera position:
There’s a very interesting debate to have here. Some hyper-rational folks believe that if something is a law, it ought to be enforced in every circumstance.
I think the “it’s simple” position is dead wrong. I think flexibility in the enforcement of speed limits (and some other laws) is a good thing. It would be hard to write down every single exception and nuance into a law, and so instead we rely on humans to interpret the law and discern the circumstances. Speed cameras remove the human element.
That said, I really hate speeding, especially when pedestrians are nearby, and I really want to slow cars down in pedestrian areas. So I’m not anti-speed camera. I’m pro-speed cameras in a lot of places. I know some residential streets that serve as good cut-throughs when traffic is bad. I would put up speed cameras on these streets. If I ran a town, I would want every driver to think and tell his friends, “Do NOT speed on the residential roads in that town. You WILL get a ticket.”
The District of Columbia takes a different approach to its speed camera placement. At least some of their speed cameras are deployed not to reduce unsafe speeding (that is, reduce danger to pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers), but to maximize revenue. On X, I cited the two speed cameras in a tunnel on K Street in Northwest D.C.
These cameras have been notorious for a decade because they seem like predatory cash grabs rather than public safety measures.
The speed-camera lovers, though, defend these underground cameras with every imaginable defense. My favorite was “Why can’t you people just comply?” But here’s where the defenders tried to argue that the underground tunnels really did have to do with safety.
There are many problems with this argument. For starters, if you were concerned about the speed of folks coming out of that tunnel, you would put the camera near the exit of the tunnel. The K Street cameras are closer to the exit than the entrance, but they catch people on the flat part, not on the uphill. Why?
Well, the uphill naturally slows cars down through both physics and human behavior: drivers slow down, knowing they are exiting a tunnel onto surface streets where they will encounter pedestrians, cyclists, and intersections. That’s good news if you care about safety. But you don’t want your camera pointed at that exit ramp if you want to maximize revenue.
Also, you can check the accident data at the intersections at either exit of the tunnel. For a car going into downtown (eastbound), the first intersection is at 21st St. In the last 10 years, it appears, there has been exactly one accident involving a bicyclist, and it resulted in minor injuries. There have been no accidents involving pedestrians.
If you’re leaving downtown, 25th Street is the first intersection and crosswalk you encounter. D.C.’s data show no pedestrian or bicyclist accidents there. As far as car-only accidents, they are lower at those intersections than at the average intersections along K Street.
Before you say, “Oh, the camera must be working,” keep in mind that last month, these two cameras gave out more than 55,000 tickets — or 177 per day — and that was a light month.
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That is, every day, dozens and dozens of cars exceed 35 miles per hour before hitting the ramp back up to street level, and every single one of them emerges safely onto the surface road.
The bottom of this tunnel is not where you would put a speed camera if you were concerned with pedestrian safety. This is where you would put a speed camera if you wanted a way to extract revenue from drivers who are behaving reasonably (going a bit faster on a grade-separated intersection-free segment of road), but who are not Washington insiders and so don’t know where such reasonable behavior will cost them.