Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons
Traffic cameras are extremely divisive, with critics calling them a cash grab or raising equity concerns. However, Alan Ehrenhalt notes in Governing, the evidence shows that speed and red-light cameras save lives.
“When you reduce the number of police traffic stops for speeding or red-light running, the number of accidents goes up. When you install cameras to catch the offenders, the number goes down,” Ehrenhalt explains. “One recent study estimated that traffic cameras along one particularly dangerous roadway in Philadelphia prevented as many as 20 crashes per month and up to 1.4 monthly deaths.” Speeding infractions on that roa dropped by 90 percent after the cameras were installed. Other studies show similarly encouraging results…