Many Marylanders speed, so it's not surprising that we're nervous about equipment that can catch us at it. But just as there are good reasons for speed limits around schools and highway construction sites, there are as good reasons for municipalities to have the right to use speed cameras to slow traffic in these areas.
Legislation proposed by the O'Malley administration would give local jurisdictions the power to use the cameras on streets with speed limits up to 45 mph that are near schools and highway construction zones. Owners of cars traveling 10 mph or more over the limit would get a $75 ticket. But the speeding incidents would not be charged against the owners' driving record.
The bill doesn't mandate use of camera enforcement on any county that doesn't want it. But it would give hard-pressed local police in the congested Baltimore-Washington corridor an added tool in their efforts to calm traffic and improve safety and the quality of life in residential areas. For that reason, the legislature should pass the bill and send it to the governor for his signature.
Police and local officials in Baltimore and Howard counties, who strongly support the measure, describe speeding as the No. 1 complaint they hear at community meetings.
When local police officials testified in support of the speed cameras at hearings in Annapolis recently, legislators raised concerns about the fairness of issuing tickets to car owners when someone else may have been behind the wheel and speeding.
But there's a remedy: Innocent car owners can have their tickets canceled by identifying the speeder in an affidavit to the District Court, which can issue a ticket to the real culprit. The fines collected because of speed camera tickets would be used to promote public safety, according to the legislation. That's a cost-effective way to persuade normally law-abiding citizens to pay more attention to legal limits.
An experimental program in Montgomery County last year offers strong evidence that the cameras do the job. A study of the program by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showed that on streets equipped with cameras and warning signs, the percentage of drivers exceeding the speed limit by 10 mph or more declined by two-thirds. The same study also found that 61 percent of county drivers surveyed supported the use of speed cameras.
It's time to allow citizens across Maryland to benefit from their use.