Balto County Police: Speed Camera Citations Drop, Accident Numbers Remain Constant
The Perry Hall Patch has an article about the police 5 month study on the effectiveness of speed cameras. Conclusion is they are very affective at reducing speed in school zones but also shows no decrease in accidents. Councilman Todd Huff of Timonium is still against the cameras.
Personally I see this as good news as slower speeds will help encourage more kids to bike or walk to school and hopefully put a dent in the obesity epidemic. The fact that when the speed cameras first went up there was a huge number of violations shows that we have a huge problem with scoff-law motorists and that needs to be curtailed. Every road cannot be a supper fast expressway, speeds need to be prudent for the conditions and for the safety of other road users as well. Remember the chance of a pedestrian dying in car crash goes up dramatically between 25mph and 45mph, and at 45mph to odds of a pedestrian surviving are not good.
And I would like to point out 2009 crash stats, Baltimore County had 21 pedestrian deaths while the much larger Montgomery County had only 9 pedestrian deaths, something needs to be done to make Baltimore County pedestrian friendly. Reference: 2009 Pedestrian Fatality Rate by County <a href="http://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20110126113548321">http://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20110126113548321</a>;