NYC Speed Cameras Now Track Drivers 24/7 in Safety Win for Adams.
The city’s 2,000 speed cameras will start monitoring cars who exceed the speed limit by at least 10 miles starting at 10 p.m. on Monday. It is a part of Mayor Eric Adams’s campaign to lower traffic fatalities, which increased by 44% in the first three months of this year compared to 2021. A state measure supported by Adams that permits the city to make the adjustment was signed by Governor Kathy Hochul in June.
According to Transportation Alternatives, a local public transit advocacy group, the increase in auto fatalities represented the deadliest start to any year since the Vision Zero street safety campaign was introduced in 2014 under former Mayor Bill de Blasio. City authorities used studies suggesting that speed camera use reduces speeding by an average of 72% when introducing the initiative.
The city that never sleeps deserves a camera system that won’t take a nap, Adams said at an event Monday where he flipped a ceremonial switch to launch the 24/7 surveillance program. This is a new chapter in traffic safety in our city.
Prior to Monday’s change, the city’s cameras only watched the roads on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., even though 31% of fatal traffic accidents happened then. $50 fines are imposed on offenders.
Since Adams took office in January, this proposal represents the administration’s most substantial effort to increase pedestrian safety. In that same month, he unveiled a proposal to reconfigure 1,000 crossings throughout the city, more than 500 of which, according to him, had already been done.
The event was also attended by Monique Williams, a Families for Safe Streets advocate who lost her father in a car accident.
I cannot describe the pain that our family feels and how much we miss him, Williams said. Nobody else should experience the pain of having to lose their loved one, killed in a preventable car crash on our streets.
