With a new high-tech choice of radar-detector applications, GPS users have more systems new options to beat the growing number of red-light cameras and speed cameras being installed across the United States. While local police decry the programs, users claim they are slowing down traffic, hence doing exactly what authorities claim they want their cameras to do.
There are some 30,000 or so cameras installed across the country. However, the Washington, D.C., area is ground zero for speed cameras and red-light cameras with the highest incidence of these contraptions in the U.S. The greater D.C. area has 290 red-light and speed cameras — comprising nearly 10 percent of all traffic cameras in the U.S., according to estimates by a camera-tracking database called the POI Factory.
The D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier claims that drivers who use these GPS add-ons are “cowards.” She claims that this software is only “designed to circumvent law enforcement — law enforcement that is designed specifically to save lives.”
Drivers who have installed the software claim that the cameras are doing exactly what they are designed to do — slow down traffic. The developers of these different software packages make the same argument. “If police come against us, it’s going to make them look like they are only [after] revenue” from the camera-generated citations, he said.
Photo radar tickets generated nearly $1 billion in revenues for D.C. during fiscal years 2005 to 2008. And new cameras being installed in Montgomery County, Maryland, are expected to bring in almost $30 million this year.
Using such speed-trap and speed-camera avoidance software is certainly less destructive than speed-camera vandalism that has been taking place in Maryland recently.
In the most recent incident, police say an unknown person or people painted over the lenses of two sets of speed cameras on Aug. 1 in the Cabin John area, rendering them useless. The cameras have since been repaired.
Less destructive grassroots efforts to thwart these cameras have been tried by locals who have set up signs along the side of the road alerting drivers to upcoming speed camera and other spots where spray paint is used right on the road protesting the cameras as “greed machines.”
According to a CNN report: Russ Rader, at the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, says that, outside of freeways, speed cameras are used in 48 communities nationwide, including in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington, and Washington DC. The group’s research shows that photo enforcement “works to slow drivers down. Cameras do what police officers can’t — enforce speed limit laws 24/7. Speeding is a major safety problem on our roads. It contributes to one-third of all crash deaths.”
While many Americans hate speed cameras, ironically others seem to feel red-light cameras are acceptable. In any case, the GPS software provides a bonus to the programmers who are selling the software, drivers who are slowing down to avoid fines and the municipalities who are seeing a decrease in traffic accidents. The only losers are the local treasuries, which might miss out on collecting a fine or two.
Whatever side of the argument anyone is on, once speed and red-light cameras are in place, speeds and accidents go down. Whether speeders are dissuaded by hefty fines or by warnings sent through GPS systems.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
