Is speed enforcement a revenue-grabbing scheme cooked up by a greedy municipal government or does having police officers jump from behind bushes brandishing a radar gun actually promote safe driving? We’ll be hearing a lot about it now that the city wants to put photo radar devices at intersections, at the same spots as red light cameras. So far, it seems there exist little to no evidence that exceeding the speed limits, causes more accidents, injuries or deaths. In fact, according to a University of California, Irvine study, higher speed limits actually lower fatality rates. See here too. Some studies do show a decrease in traffic accidents though some people argue the studies use total accidents and deliberately ignore collision percentages such as the number of accidents per 1,000,000 drivers.
Anyone who has ever driven knows speed traps and photo radars are marginally effective, at best. Most speeders (myself included) slow down when they see a van with tinted windows parked on the road’s shoulder. We slow down, until we’ve passed the car, and accelerate as usual. If I do this, and I know plenty others who do the same, then I’d have to assume municipal governments, who are, I hate to admit, a lot smarter than me, know the same thing.
I’m going to go with “municipal cash grab” on this one.
