While driving in Australia on a lonely road at night, you may be startled by a sudden flash of light. You have just been caught by a speed camera. The ticket, charging a hefty fine, will be mailed to the address linked to your automobile tag, whose picture has just been taken. The speed cameras are typically set right at the speed limit, so even one kilometer per hour over the limit will trigger the cameras.
A further problem for the speeder is that you will be assessed “demerit points,” between one and six depending on how fast you were going. Once you get thirteen points over a three year period, your driver’s license gets suspended for 3-6 months. And if you lent your car to your teenager who drove too fast, you get the ticket and the points.
Not as many traffic cops are on the highways because the cameras catch the speeders, who cannot escape. Drivers find themselves driving significantly below the speed limit, lest they inadvertently trigger the cameras, which are often hidden.
This is automated law enforcement. Other countries–including the United Kingdom, Russia, Italy, and Brazil –have similar systems. The speed cameras bring governments significant revenue in fines and have the safety benefits of slowing down traffic, but drivers typically hate them.
Now an accelerated program of speed cameras is coming to the United States! That infrastructure bill that Republicans joined Democrats to pass included $14 billion for the things, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is planning to promote their use throughout the nation.
Eighteen states already use them on a relatively limited basis, though eight states have laws forbidding their use. “Traffic cameras” often monitor intersections to catch people who run red lights. But what Secretary Buttigieg has in mind would seem to go far beyond what we have now, a movement to automated traffic law enforcement similar to what these other countries have.
The British newspaper the Daily Mail has an informative article on the subject entitled The speed camera nightmare that’s coming to America, with the tabloid style description, “How the UK’s hated war on motorists – costing drivers $56M in fines every year – provides a chilling glimpse of what’s in store under Pete Buttigieg’s plan.”
So what are we to think of this? I don’t believe this shift to automated enforcement received much attention or consideration from the public. It was buried in the mammoth bipartisan infrastructure bill as a safety provision, along with the alcohol-monitoring devices built into new cars, which we blogged about.
The Daily Mail piece says that the speed cameras are “hated” both by conservatives and progressives. But isn’t it for our own good? Shouldn’t safety be our top priority? The article cites some experts who claim that reliance on speed cameras actually harms safety, because there are fewer police on the road to deal with worse offenses. But surely driving faster than the speed limit is against the law, and we drivers, like it or not, should really be obeying that law.
This is true. We should obey traffic laws. Ideally, by the canons of civic virtue, we should obey them of our own free will. We should obey them for the common good and out of recognition for lawful authority. And if we don’t obey them, we should accept our punishment.
But automated enforcement takes obedience out of the picture. A surveillance state or a nanny state seeks to make non-compliance impossible. When cameras monitor your behavior so closely that you do not dare step out of line, you are not being obedient. You are being controlled.
Maybe a comprehensive speeding camera program can be justified. Feel free to make that case in the comments. I am certain, though, that it will be wildly unpopular. And if the program gets identified with Pete Buttigieg, it won’t help his political career. Ordinary Americans of the left and the right will overcome their polarization by joining together to complain about it, though our ruling class, loving to rule, will think it is a great idea.
Photo: Average Speed Cameras (UK) by J, via Flickr, Creative Commons 2.0. No changes.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In