Tag: Traffic enforcement camera

Proponents argue that more measures need to be taken to make the city’s streets safer — in the first five months of this year, 37 pedestrians were killed by vehicles. With a little over a month left in session, it’s time for Albany to do what they know works and renew and expand protection of N.Y.C. Image During the first month of the program at P.S. About two years after the installation of the cameras, that number had dropped to 54 summonses every day, a nearly 80 percent decline, making it clear that the electronic monitoring was having its intended effect of slowing drivers down. The results seem to have been borne out citywide, with the number of speeding tickets issued by the cameras plunging on average, by 63 percent and in some areas by as much as 85 percent in the 18-month period since the program began in 2014. One bill in the state Legislature, supported by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, would double the number of schools with cameras to 290 and widen the area that they would cover from the street in front of a school’s entrance to the surrounding streets, up to a quarter-mile radius. Golden, a Republican senator from Brooklyn, agreed to be a sponsor of the legislation after the number was reduced. Complicating the situation is the position of Senator Simcha Felder, a Democrat from Brooklyn who wields inordinate power by choosing to caucus with the Republicans and who has balked at supporting the speed camera program because he believes a more important issue involving safety at schools is increasing police presence. “But this is a public health and safety issue; reducing speed will save lives, and our children are our future.” To Annabell Burrell, the principal of P.S. 124, two children were killed and several people were injured when a car plowed into them.