Bronx News 12 | By News 12 Staff | February 8, 2023
One of the state's main legislators behind the law of having speed cameras in school zones says it has worked to save lives since they were installed six months ago.
If someone asks state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, turning traffic speed cameras on 24 hours a day, seven days a week in school zones has been worth every minute he put into co-sponsoring and introducing the law.
"It demonstrated exactly what we were hoping for. The program has just proven how wildly successful it is when we rely on automated enforcement to do something so basic, like just make sure that we're driving within the speed limit," Gounardes says.
While city data shows speeding tickets spiked in August when the law first went into effect, they have gone down every month since.
"You couldn't put a cop on every corner in the city and catch the number of speeders we've caught with the cameras. And the thing is, 70% of the people who get one ticket don't get another one, which means that they change their behavior, and they're keeping everybody else safe," said. Gounardes.
He says he does not think it is a coincidence that 2022 was also the first year that the city saw a drop in traffic deaths since 2018. Gounardes says a great deal of those decreases are in the new hours that the cameras have been on.
"Sometimes you don't even realize it and that's why this is just a gentle reminder, the $50 violation, you realize it, 'you know what, now I have got to pay attention, I won't do it again,'" Gounardes says.