New York’s Speed Camera Trial In Work Zones Could Become Permanent

No workers’ injuries or fatalities have been recorded in camera-monitored zones during the first two of the five-year trial program

                                        https://www.carscoops.com/author/chris-chilton-cc/                                    

A speed camera trial in New York—praised for its life-saving potential and despised by impatient drivers who have already been hit collectively with millions in fines—has been such a success that state officials are now pushing to make it a permanent fixture.

Both the New York State Thruway Authority and the Department of Transportation want lawmakers to make the Automatic Work Zone Speed Enforcement Pilot Program permanent through the state budget, which is finalized on April 1.

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The program was signed into law in 2021, a year in which 50 drivers or highway workers were injured by cars entering part of the roadway closed to public traffic. The trial was to last five years and began operating in April 2023 when 30 work zone speed units were deployed.

Even though the program has so far been running for only two of the five planned years, transport officials say there’s already enough evidence of its benefits to justify it being made permanent.

“In the not quite two years that this program has been in existence, we have seen driver behavior change,” Frank Hoare, Executive Director of the New York Thruway Authority, told WSYR. “The data supports it. We have seen people slow down and an important element of this program calls for fees generated from the violations to go right into safety programs.”

Work zone speed violations don’t add points to your driving license. However, a first-time speeding violation lands a driver with a $50 fine, a second within 18 months increases that to $75, and three or more within an 18-month period result in each new violation costing $100. Around $11.7 million has reportedly been collected since the pilot program began.

Slowing cars down isn’t the only way NY wants to protect its road work zone employees. Transport bosses are also hoping legislation passes that will make assaulting a worker a class D felony, which could put offenders in jail for up to seven years.

“People are literally getting out of their cars, hitting, kicking, throwing hot coffee, hurling insults at our highway maintenance workers,” Marie Therese Dominguez, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation, told the news outlet.