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

  • June 15, 2022
    Jenoptik measures out the future
    The speed of tech changes means Jenoptik is redrawing how it sees itself. Adam Hill catches up with Stefan Traeger and Kevin Chevis at Intertraffic Amsterdam to find out more about ‘extended reality’…
  • March 19, 2014
    New opportunities in a data-rich future
    Jason Barnes looks at where the detection and monitoring sector is heading. In the future, there will be no such thing as an un-instrumented road. Just a short time ago, that could have been a quote from a high-level policy document but with the first arrivals of vehicles with 802.11p connectivity – the door-opener to Vehicle-to-X (V2X) applications – it’s a statement which has increasing validity. The technology which uses our roads will also provide information on road conditions but V2X isn’t the only
  • January 31, 2012
    Demand management schemes, is there a better way?
    The European Commission is placing too much emphasis on the use of demand management, according to the FIA. Here, Wil Botman, Director-General of the FIA's European Bureau, explains why. Towards the end of last year, the European Bureau of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) released a statement which criticised the European Commission's (EC's) approach to urban traffic congestion following the adoption of the Action Plan on Urban Mobility. In particular, the FIA voiced concerns over what it
  • April 26, 2023
    Kurtis McBride, Miovision: 'Digitalisation opens up opportunity'
    Kurtis McBride, Miovision co-founder and CEO, talks about the importance of data – and why one bit of hardware capable of running a range of software solutions could be the future of transportation