Skip to main content

Speed cameras have ‘changed the way people in Montgomery County drive’

According to police in Montgomery County, Maryland, the speed camera program the county started in 2009 has made roads safer and reduced speeding in a way no other tool could. “What we’ve seen is something that’s changed driver behavior like nothing else has in the history of law enforcement,” Captain Paul Starks, a police spokesperson, told County Cable Montgomery. Starks said the number of citations from speed cameras is on a steady decline, proof that the program is working and not merely a revenue strat
May 29, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
According to police in Montgomery County, Maryland, the speed camera program the county started in 2009 has made roads safer and reduced speeding in a way no other tool could.

“What we’ve seen is something that’s changed driver behavior like nothing else has in the history of law enforcement,” Captain Paul Starks, a police spokesperson, told County Cable Montgomery.

Starks said the number of citations from speed cameras is on a steady decline, proof that the program is working and not merely a revenue strategy.

“Our goal from the start has been to change driver behavior, particularly in areas where we have pedestrians and a history of collisions,” said county council member Phil Andrews, who the Council’s Public Safety Committee. “Our police department has done an excellent job of placing cameras where the history shows there’s been a large number of collisions or where there are many pedestrians, especially children, present in school areas or areas near bus stops, playgrounds and areas where speeding has been a long concern and there’s been a connection to collisions.”

Related Content

  • Xerox to equip school buses with traffic cameras
    August 16, 2012
    Frederick County, Maryland, has turned to Xerox and its CrossSafe programme to monitor children getting on and off of the buses and record drivers who pass illegally. The company will provide the technology, software and process the violations and maintain the programme under a five-year contract. The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office will review and verify all violations before they are issued.
  • Future of US cooperative infrastructure networks
    July 31, 2012
    Peter H. Appel, the new Administrator of the USDOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration, on his vision of the US's future cooperative infrastructure networks. Peter H. Appel comes to the post of Administrator of the US Department of Transportation's Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) from a background in transportation-related work which stretches back over 20 years. Most recently with management consultancy A. T. Kearney, Inc., where he focused on busin
  • Smart Cities put people, prudence and businesses before technology
    December 4, 2014
    Caroline Haynes tells ITS International that transport planners and equipment suppliers need to adopt different thinking and the smartest cities don’t call themselves smart. The term Smart Cities has been around for some time and has become something of a catch-all term applied to novel or futuristic technology deployed in an urban setting.
  • Europe’s road safety record suffers as austerity bites hard, traffic police chiefs are told at TISPOL 2017
    March 7, 2018
    Europe’s leading traffic police chiefs are struggling with the challenge of how best to manage the region’s road network in an era of austerity. Things are changing fast, and not for the better, reports Geoff Hadwick. Europe’s road safety record is under threat. Police budgets are being slashed, staff numbers are falling and a long-term trend towards ever-fewer road deaths has ground to a halt. The line on the graph has flat-lined. Does Europe’s road network face a far more dangerous future? Lower and