Can traffic cameras make us safer?

On Monday, November 15, Councilmember Mary Cheh held a roundtable on the District’s Automated Traffic Enforcement Camera program. I testified in support of the program on behalf of the DC Sustainable Transportation Coalition, which GGWash manages, and Alex Baca offered written comments on behalf of GGWash.

As DC expands its camera enforcement program, a move many advocates including GGWash have supported for years, it’s a good opportunity to reflect on the role that enforcement plays in making cities safe, livable, and mobile. Here are some key points from our testimony.

A picture’s worth a thousand empty words

In 2021, drivers have killed 37 people thus far and caused 4,500 minor and 329 major injuries. Such injuries can end a person’s life as they knew it, and present serious financial and social consequences, especially in lower-income households. As we’ve observed elsewhere, the traffic violence crisis isn’t unique to DC: it’s nationwide. But the solutions will lie at both federal and local levels, as agencies like DDOT and leaders like the Mayor have a lot of say over what gets priority in our local streetscapes: life or cars.

Enforcement is one of the “5 Es” of Vision Zero (Evaluation, Engineering, Enforcement, Education, and Encouragement; some have added Equity and Engagement), an internationally-recognized framework for acting systematically to eliminate traffic deaths. DC has committed to implementing this approach for several years, with little to show for it. The enforcement “E” is traditionally framed by advocates as a direct disincentive for individual driving behaviors that endanger others.

In recent years, some activists have argued that enforcement should be the “littlest e”; in other words, deemphasized in favor of other approaches that make it hard, impossible, or otherwise unappealing to drive unsafely. This position makes some sense from the point of view of treating traffic violence as a public health issue, which it is, rather than simply a matter of individual decision-making. It’s crucial to ensure that the locations of cameras are complemented by data-driven improvements to streetscapes to make them safer across the board (more on that below). Without doing that, it’s no wonder some see traffic cameras as a trap.

But even skeptics agree that automated enforcement is a more equitable way than relying mainly on law enforcement officers to monitor and cite non-compliance with traffic laws. Cameras limit the role of implicit bias of officers choosing which drivers to pull over, and also limit the potential for escalating negative interactions.

Safety in public space: a casualty of the coronavirus

Traffic violence is a public health crisis. With the rise in dangerous driving, curing traffic violence is part of our city’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Serious illnesses often come with other pathologies at the individual level (for example, a diabetes patient might be more disposed to cardiovascular disease). That’s what’s happened with COVID-19 on a societal level: over the last 20 months, more space for drivers to violate the law with impunity, plus limited enforcement efforts, have infected our streets with more traffic violence than we’ve seen in years.

The fact that there are other “patients,” other cities, with the same condition doesn’t mean we shrug our shoulders: it means the association is real, widespread, and we have to get serious about treating it. There’s no record of traffic violence curing itself.

So why camera-based enforcement specifically? Advocates are right to note that more sustainable gains are to be had from redesigning our streetscapes around safety. But that’s a long-term process and in the meantime, a crisis is unfolding that we could mitigate with direct disincentives that are swift, certain, and fair.

Cameras can be a win for equity, on the right terms

Cameras can pay off for equity in multiple respects. Firstly, they provide an alternative to law enforcement officers’ interactions with drivers. Reports show that traffic stops can put drivers of color at a greater risk of escalation and negative interactions with law enforcement, even getting killed. An alternative to law enforcement involvement exists in the form of cameras, so we should adopt that alternative widely.

Furthermore, Black and Brown residents are more likely than white residents to die or be injured in vehicle crashes, whether they’re in cars or out—a systematic health inequality in the clearest possible terms. As the District makes efforts in other realms to improve health service disparities, we also need to look closely at the causes of those differential health outcomes.

A common objection to cameras has been in situations where they disproportionately cite violations by drivers of color. In DC, concerns about disparities relate to where they are placed, not the income level or race of the driver (which are not discernible by DC’s cameras). DDOT says that cameras are placed according to where safety is most likely to be a concern, a combination of both volumes of violations and particular vulnerabilities like schools. The list of current traffic enforcement locations bear out both perspectives, with wards 5 and 7 having the highest numbers of cameras but also the mix of violations and safety considerations that naturally should be the focus of enforcement efforts.

We have suggestions to address these potential disparities. For one, DDOT must ensure that these priority areas, where dangerous infractions and safety needs are significant, are high on the list for non-enforcement approaches, chiefly streetscape design, so that we’re setting drivers up for success with settings that encourage safe driving. Enforcement should be a smaller complement, not a replacement for, safe streetscape design and mode shift initiatives. But it has its place, especially in the current environment.

The consequences of violations don’t have to be fines and fees, which can be regressive by making traffic laws something wealthier people can afford to break, and lower-income people cannot. The consequences could be points on drivers’ licenses, as is done in many European countries.

Another way of limiting inequitable impacts on lower-income drivers is to keep fines and fees low, and re-orient the objectives of the camera system to emphasize data collection. Better data would position DDOT to be more pro-active about redesigning streetscapes for safety, by using cameras to spot areas with high numbers of violations. The point is that there are tools that could make enforcement strategies work better for equity. Some creativity is called for in the face of a crisis.

A modest proposal: ban illegally driven cars

At the moment, the sheer quantity and extent of expired temporary, and in some cases clearly fake, license plates on vehicles in DC present a significant barrier to any enforcement. Automated methods can’t do anything about them: if it’s a fake tag, the transgressor cannot be identified, and this in fact puts drivers with lawful plates at a disadvantage. But it seems apparent that actual enforcement officers are not in a position to get a handle on the problem of expired tags either.

Councilmembers (and twitter observers) also highlighted concerns about the capacity of DPW to boot and tow vehicles with several unpaid tickets. Councilmember Cheh noted that it would take DPW up to 25 years, with its current capacity, to tow the approximately 500,000 out-of-state vehicles currently eligible to be towed—and that’s if no additional vehicles get added to the list. Better get to it?

We called on DDOT, DMV, DPW, MPD, and Department of Health to convene an executive-level task force to come out with clear, time-bound strategies to reduce traffic fatalities and injuries, with enforcement one of several focus areas along with the other “e”s in Vision Zero. It’s clear that multi-sectoral coordination is a sin qua non of traffic violence reduction on our streets, and it’s past time to get high-level heads working on these issues in concert. The task force could also address the ticket reciprocity issue with Maryland and Virginia, which Councilmember Cheh noted costs the District millions of dollars every year and hobbles any enforcement efforts.

Letting people break traffic laws with impunity gets more people killed

Jessica Hart, whose five-year-old daughter was killed by a driver this year, testified at the roundtable, calling on District officials to implement specific approaches to stop the traffic violence crisis. Hart’s testimony highlighted the value of enforcement practices in creating driver accountability for unsafe behavior, currently conspicuous in its absence.

A systematic, evidence-driven and transparent approach to camera enforcement can complement broader approaches in keeping people safe. Even when no one’s actually been hit, near misses have a cost: the expectation that a certain intersection or road is dangerous will negatively affect a community’s experience of public space.

For many drivers, it’s easy to dismiss rolling past a stop sign or running a red if no one’s hurt. But when they do so with impunity, that’s our society and leaders agreeing that indeed, it’s not important to protect the public from the deadly effects of those beliefs. A system whose rules are broadly followed is one in which drivers don’t get to choose for themselves when to disregard the lives and safety of other people using the roads. Cameras can help us get there.

*Editor’s note: GGWash maintains a firewall between its advocacy and editorial activities, and editorial staff are not involved in advocacy. To learn more, see our editorial policy.