Millions of drivers across the country are encountering speed cameras for the first time, or will soon. Many don't like it, but advocates say there's clear evidence that cameras make roads safer.
Millions of drivers across the country are encountering automated speed cameras for the first time, or they will soon. Safety advocates say there's clear evidence that these cameras work, but there's also a growing backlash from drivers, as NPR's Joel Rose reports.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: If you've been driving around South Florida lately, you might have seen these speed cameras, like this one in Broward County, north of Miami. It's like a metal box on the top of a tall, silver pole. Cameras like this have been springing up in school zones all over Florida, and some drivers have a lot to say about that, drivers like Carlos Acosta.
CARLOS ACOSTA: I think it's a money grab. That's what irks me the most. It's all about making money.
ROSE: Acosta lives in a suburb of Miami. He's retired after working in the sheriff's office in Miami-Dade County for 27 years. This spring, Acosta says he got two speed camera tickets in school zones near his house – during the middle of the day, when the kids were inside the school building.
ACOSTA: I'm all for protecting the kids coming and going from school, but my particular ones were in between these times. They're basically giving you a citation for going over the regular speed limit. That's where you get popped.
ROSE: Florida recently joined the growing list of states that allow speed cameras. So have California, Hawaii, Michigan and Minnesota. They're now legal in more than two dozen states. Each takes a different approach in terms of where the cameras are located and where the money goes. In general, safety advocates say these cameras are working and saving lives by forcing drivers to slow down. But some drivers are pushing back. Ted Hollander is a lawyer at The Ticket Clinic, a law firm that's fighting camera tickets in Florida.
TED HOLLANDER: We don't really think it's truly about safety because if it was, it would only be during the times when the kids are around, not when they are in school. And we feel like it's an illegal tax, and we want to do what we can to protect people.
ROSE: But safety advocates argue it's the speed cameras that are protecting people by changing drivers' behavior. Raul Avelar is with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit research organization funded by the auto insurance industry.
RAUL AVELAR: The whole point of the cameras is reducing the speeds, which leads to crashes at lower speeds when they happen, so there's fewer people dying.
ROSE: Avelar points to multiple studies in the U.S. that show cameras can cut speeding by 70% or more and one study in Maryland that found speed cameras reduced the likelihood of serious injury by 39%. Still, some lawmakers are sensitive to the complaint that these cameras are just a new way for cities to raise revenue.
LAURA FRIEDMAN: We have so many safeguards built into this to make sure that is purely a traffic-calming and speed-reduction effort and not a money grab.
ROSE: Laura Friedman represents parts of the Los Angeles area in Congress. Before that, she wrote California's speed camera law when she was a member of the state assembly. The first speed cameras in the state came online last year in San Francisco, followed by Oakland earlier this year. But the big test of the state's law is looming over the next few months. That's when speed cameras are set to be activated in Los Angeles, a city that has long been defined by its love of cars, especially fast ones…
ROSE: …Like the cars in this street racing scene from "The Fast And The Furious."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS")
