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EDITORIAL: Smile! You'Ve Been Nabbed: Akron Gets Its Act Together in Using Cameras to Slow Speeders

Posted on: Monday, 27 February 2006, 15:00 CST

By The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio

Feb. 27--Just when Akron drivers figured they could get a little more frisky with the gas pedal, the city has extended its contract with the company providing the cameras photographing speeders. Fittingly, there is an automatic, month-to-month extension clause in the agreement with Nestor Traffic Systems, which will take the current program at least to March 24. The city must give 30 days notice to end the program with Nestor.

Many people would like no less than that. As it is, if the city intends to maintain the presence of cameras in school zones, it doesn't make sense to allow the program to lapse.

And it makes sense to keep the program going. While precise totals are not yet available, the number of speeding tickets has dropped "precipitously." Which has been the point of this program, to get people to slow down. It is hardly a big money maker, as some critics charge, especially since the Akron City Council, responding to public outrage, dropped the speeding fine to $35 from a maximum of $250 per ticket. The penalty will rise to $100 per ticket if the city makes the camera program permanent.

Akron is outlining the details of such a program and seeking proposals from the handful of companies that deal in this kind of technology. Schools that currently do not have flashing lights will receive them. All, it would seem, will soon be ready.

Unfortunately, state lawmakers cannot resist tinkering in local affairs. The Ohio House recently approved legislation requiring a police officer to be present and to issue citations to anyone photographed by speed cameras. That would end such programs and is another meddlesome legislative intrusion into local governance. If people do not like getting speeding tickets, whether written by a live officer or captured on camera, there is a foolproof method of avoiding them: Slow down.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio

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Source: Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio)

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