Governments have reasons for
deploying traffic enforcement
cameras-safety of motorists and
pedestrians and raising local
revenues, for example.
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Enforcement cams slash emissions as they reduce speeds, the
UKSDC says.
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But across the Atlantic, the United
Kingdom’s Sustainable Development
Commission has some bigger ideas.
Speed cameras and related technologies
to influence driver behavior can
also reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
the commission said in a 64-page
report, “Smarter Moves,” released in
January.
The report suggests several ways
information technologies can save
energy; it advocates more videoconferencing,
carpooling, mass transportation and
telecommuting to reduce travel, for example.
But in the United Kingdom, where license plate
recognition technology already tracks more than 1
million vehicle movements a day, the commission
envisions much, much more.
To slow traffic, the commission wants speed cameras.
And not just the kind that measure speed at a
single spot that can be dodged by briefly slowing
down, but also networked cameras those that measure
average speed over a distance, making them
harder to avoid. More than half of all drivers exceed
speed limits, so there’s plenty of behavior to influence,
the commission notes. It also advocates changing
the speed limits in residential areas to 20 mph,
where currently 49 percent of motorists top 30 mph.
But there’s more. How about “intelligent speed
adaption,” along with automated braking systems,
technology that could advise (or maybe force) drivers
to follow local limits? “A GPS-based database of
speed limits can be linked into a vehicle’s cruise
control system to automatically set cruise speeds,”
the report notes, calling for a timetable on the
implementation.
That technology-already in effect in some fleets could
save 25 million “tonnes” of carbon over 60
years in the United Kingdom, the commission said.
Then there are pay-as-you-go insurance schemes:
Your insurance company installs a GPS tracking device,
and you pay in proportion to miles driven, the thinking
goes. Some politicians in the United Stated have
also embraced the promise of this technology to track
road use, replacing (or supplementing) fuel taxes.
Similar tracking technology could educate drivers
on “green,” driving, alerting them to inefficient
actions like quick acceleration and braking.
Meanwhile around the world, the cameras are
boosting local budgets as they slow the lead-foots.
Here are just a few recent developments: In
California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to
kill a $20 billion shortfall and has proposed corralling
an additional $337.9 million from automated speed
enforcement revenue. In New York, Gov. David
Patterson faces a $7.4 billion shortfall, and his proposed
budget calls for a work-zone speed-enforcement
program to raise $153 million in four years.
In Indiana, a bill introduced Jan. 12 would create a
statewide speed enforcement program with $300 fines
for first offenders and $500 fines for repeat violators.
And Washington, D.C., collected $33.4 million in
speed camera ticket revenue, AAA Mid-Atlantic
says, plus more than $7.1 million from red-light
cameras in FY 2009, which ended in September.
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