Last week Gov. Cuomo announced an executive budgetary amendment that would fund putting cameras in Long Island school districts to monitor speeding and other traffic violations.
Although Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and others are cheering the decision, we’re not convinced it’s a good thing.
“I commend Governor Cuomo for his commitment to protecting the safety and welfare of our children,” said Mangano. “My administration has worked tirelessly with law enforcement to protect our most precious asset and the governor’s proposal will assist us in furthering that goal.”
When a politician uses the words “our children” and “most precious asset” in the same statement, we get nervous. We’re all for protecting the “precious assets” of Nassau County but we think it can be done more effectively at almost no cost.
The cameras in question, manufactured in Arizona, are designed to be placed in school zones. The risk in these zones is obviously greatest when the children are arriving or leaving. That’s at most two hours a day, five days a week or less. During these times, crossing guards are already in place.
To back up the work done by the crossing guards, the county or local police could have an officer sitting in a marked a car near the school. Drivers automatically slow down when they see a police car, especially if its lights are flashing. Since the police officers are already on duty, there is no additional cost, but there would be increased safety.
Anyone who speeds or drives recklessly in a marked school zone deserves to get pulled over and ticketed. But the county doesn’t need cameras to make that happen. In fact the cameras can only identify the license plate, not the driver.
The real danger for school children occurs when they are walking from their homes to the bus or from the bus to their homes. The cameras will do nothing to reduce that danger.
We’d like to see the math that justifies the expense of purchasing, installing and monitoring these cameras. How many children in recent years were struck by cars in Nassau County school zones? (In fact the number of children struck by cars in the county has dropped markedly over the past decade.)
Rather than protecting “our children,” there is talk now that the fines generated by school zone cameras will be used to help lift the wage freeze for county workers. Nassau Interim Finance Authority Chairman Jon Kaiman said, “This could be the piece to make [a deal] economically.”
Did the proposal from the Arizona business that produces and maintains these cameras focus on protecting our “precious assets” or did it focus on the potential for these cameras to generate revenue?
This is not the way to balance the county budget.
Don’t pretend that the speed cameras will be purchased to protect “our children” if the real reason for all of this is to collect more money.
