Speed cameras may be unpopular, but they’re effective, according to officials, and more and more requests are coming in from the public for photo enforcement in their neighborhood.
“I’m getting more and more requests from neighborhoods who feel violated by speeders coming through shortcuts and everything,” said Councilman Jack Benson, who represents the East Brainerd area. “They want safety in their community. We can’t hire enough policemen to put in every neighborhood.”
He said he’s had specific requests for cameras on Concord Road as it heads toward the mall and on Graysville and Gray roads, “nearly every corridor leading to and from the mall where it’s close to neighborhoods.”
The new camera on Pinewood Drive in East Brainerd has been very effective, according to Benson.
“We had more complaints over there about speeding,” he said. “That road was overly designed. That camera … slowed me down and it slowed everyone else down on that road. I thank God we didn’t have any kids hit, but [speeders] kept the animal people busy picking up dead animals and everything.”
City traffic engineer John Van Winkle said Pinewood, like the S curves and Broad Street in St. Elmo, was a chronic problem. His department constantly monitors police data to determine where problem areas are.
“One of the strongest arguments is we focus on putting cameras where we’re having the biggest problems. Where we’re seeing high accident rates, we focus attention on those streets,” Van Winkle said.
The annual summary for 2010 should be complete soon, but residents can point out what they deem areas of concern at any time.
“Say we get a complaint, a citizen calls and has a concern for a particular street, we can pull up data for that location and focus on it,” said Van Winkle. “Sometimes … it may not stick out as a particular problem if you’re looking at the bigger picture.”
Speed studies and accident histories must determine there is, in fact, a problem in that area. Then police enforcement is sought to correct it, which may include radar traps or mobile camera units. Permanent fixed cameras are only used on main thoroughfares with high volumes of traffic, Van Winkle pointed out.
Although new fixed cameras may be installed in places “where the mobile speed vans hit quite often,” he said, no changes will be made until after the contract with new supplier American Traffic Solutions is worked out. Mobile speed vans are frequently parked on East Brainerd Road near the interstate.
Other traffic-calming devices are investigated in every case, said Van Winkle.
“[Cameras] are just one tool in our toolbox we can use and we are using, and they’re proving to be very effective,” he said. “You’ve really got to pick and choose and study and see what the most appropriate device is.”
There is no more money left in this budget year for traffic-calming devices such as speed humps, according to Van Winkle. Such measures also come with maintenance costs, but photo enforcement cameras are “self-supporting.”
Surplus revenue collected from the cameras goes toward road safety measures like driver’s education classes and equipment like radar speed-monitoring signs.
“We’re talking about new programs we otherwise wouldn’t be able to fund,” Van Winkle said. “That money is set aside for traffic safety as required by the enabling ordinance that allowed us to set up the program. It’s not used as revenue just to pay for programs of whatever purpose for our budgeting purposes.”
The resultant driver’s ed program, which was previously unavailable in Hamilton County, has graduated more than 500 participants since its inception a little more than a year ago, according to Van Winkle.
“We have to turn them away because it’s such a popular program,” he said. “They’re lining up to get enrolled for spring classes.”
Not only are the cameras helping change the behavior of young people on the road to becoming drivers, but also that of seasoned drivers. In 2001 there were 100 accidents on the one-mile stretch of Hixson Pike known as the S curves, according to Van Winkle. Last year there were two, he noted.
“Cameras have a more direct impact on changing driver behavior than the occasional side of the road enforcement by an officer,” he said. He added that not only do they make the streets safer by changing behavior, they are deemed safer for officers as well. There is no potentially dangerous interaction with angry drivers, no walk down the side of a busy road, and no need to chase through traffic after motorists.
According to Police Chief Bobby Dodd, enforcement cameras do the work of three to four police officers who would have to be stationed in a particular place around the clock.
“A lot of people who object to cameras have the perception that the cameras are just Big Brother intruding into their lives and so on,” Van Winkle said. “It’s regrettable they have that attitude because that’s not what they’re about.”