Melanie_Alnwick's Blog

Safety, safety, safety.  That's what keeps getting bantered about as the reason Montgomery County, and the "Free State" of Maryland need automated speed cameras.   

So, you'd assume that the cameras would be put in the places that have the biggest safety issues -- the most crashes, the most pedestrian collisions.  The issue came up when several people started noticing the fixed pole cameras going up in locations that didn't appear to have much of a crash problem.  We looked into it, and discovered they were right.   Check out my story and the attached documents for details.

Here's an example... New Hampshire Avenue ranks 8th on the car crash list... 2 on the pedestrian collision list (246 crashes in 2 yrs, 14 ped collisions in 2006).Viers Mill Road ranks 5th on the crash list (327 car crashes in 2 years) and 3rd for pedestrian collsions (11 in 2006). Police say they won't put speed cameras on those roads 1) because they're state roads and they'd have to go through a permitting process.. and 2) because they're major arteries and they don't want to overimpact the court system.

Yet Powder Mill Road and Richter Farm road have had so few collisions, they don't even rank... and neither had a pedestrian accident in 2006.  How can the county say the cameras are supposed to reduce car and pedestrian crashes.. if the cameras aren't in the places that have the most?

Now Governor O'Malley wants to legalize cameras statewide.. and attach a $75 fine...without any proof yet that the cameras are actually saving lives.

I've got lots of other interesting tidbits to share with you... so let's get started...