Skip to main content

New York to implement speed cameras near schools

New York City is to establish a five-year demonstration programme to monitor school speed zones in New York City with speed cameras and to allow evidence captured on camera to be used to impose liability for speeding. This new law will enhance the safety of children, pedestrians and drivers in city school speed zones by encouraging drivers to drive with caution through these areas and supplement law enforcement efforts to catch violations and prevent accidents caused by speeding. New York Governor Andrew M
August 16, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
New York City is to establish a five-year demonstration programme to monitor school speed zones in New York City with speed cameras and to allow evidence captured on camera to be used to impose liability for speeding.

This new law will enhance the safety of children, pedestrians and drivers in city school speed zones by encouraging drivers to drive with caution through these areas and supplement law enforcement efforts to catch violations and prevent accidents caused by speeding.

New York Governor Andrew M Cuomo signed the legislation, saying “Speeding in school zones puts our children at risk and preventing this reckless behaviour should be a priority.”

“This law will allow New York City to undertake a pilot program to see if using speed cameras in school zones is an effective way of preventing accidents and protecting both pedestrians and drivers. These cameras will supplement efforts by law enforcement to root out speeding violations in these protected areas, and encourage drivers to use caution when driving through school zones. Overall, this will contribute to a safer school environment for our students.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg added, “Innovative traffic engineering and aggressive enforcement have resulted in traffic fatalities in New York City reaching all-time record lows in the past decade. But speeding remains the single greatest contributing factor in traffic fatalities in New York City. Decreasing the number of drivers who speed is a proven lifesaving measure and this legislation does exactly that.”

The law takes effect on 31 August and authorises New York City to set up speed cameras in up to 20 school speed zones at a given time.

Related Content

  • Road design as a primary aid to speed enforcement?
    January 30, 2012
    Letty Aarts, senior researcher, SWOV institute for road safety research, the Netherlands, discusses how road design can act as a primary aid to speed enforcement
  • Hayden AI cameras give Philadelphia freedom to bus riders
    March 4, 2025
    150 Septa buses and 20 trolley buses will monitor bus lane infringements
  • Distraction dominated teen driver accident causes.
    June 3, 2015
    As a new report shows that distracted driving is a bigger cause of accidents than previously thought, Jon Masters asks what should be done to counter this problem. Research carried out by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has shed new light on the dangers of distraction for teen drivers. Six years of study using video analysis has shown that 58% of all crashes involving teen drivers are caused by the driver being distracted and proved that the influence of external factors is stronger than previously th
  • New York pioneers online mobile real-time bus tracking
    May 22, 2012
    An unusual technology collaboration. David Crawford investigates Early in January 2012, the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) rolled out the first borough-wide implementation of its pioneering Bus Time online mobile real-time tracking service. The system allow commuters to track each bus on every route in real-time on the internet, via smartphones and by text messaging to a mobile phone. The MTA chose Staten Island for its first live launch due to it being the only one of the five Ne