Despite all the talk about the city's speed camera program, one key point has been missing: We don't want them ("Mayor pledges new, smaller speed camera system," Dec. 18).
It's not about whether the speed camera's are accurate (although they better be). Nor is it about how many cameras there are or where they are placed (although the fewer the better, and only near actual schools would be preferable).
The point is that the city ought to be making it easier to live here, not harder. It should aim to make our lives better, not burden us with annoying tickets.
If there were strong data that speed cameras actually made Baltimore's pedestrians safer, we might not hate them so much. But there isn't.
Instead, there is only the clear inference that these cameras are nothing but a poor form of revenue collection, a regressive form of taxation that hits hardest those least able to afford it.
Brian Levy, Baltimore
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