Ready for your (driving) close-up?

The dozen traffic officers who patrol this wealthy burg say they've watched it happen for years. While they work the city's busier streets, motorists are short-cutting on quiet residential roads, often tearing along in what Hines calls "wonderfully high-performance vehicles."

Scottsdale, Ariz., had a similar problem in 1997. But officials there found a technological solution: cameras like the ones that capture the faces and license plates of red-light violators. When radar-activated cameras were placed along a few roadways, city officials said, average speeds dropped 9 mph.

Since then, cameras have also been installed along a freeway through the city, becoming so effective that Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano wants to put more on freeways statewide, not just to catch speeders -- the death rate on Arizona highways is nearly twice that of California -- but also to generate ticket revenue to narrow a $1-billion state budget gap.

The proposal has been controversial in Arizona. But in Beverly Hills, some residents and officials say the use of cameras would grab the attention of motorists.

"On a one-block residential street, for someone to get up to 40 or 50 mph is a big deal," said Alan Kaye, president of the Beverly Hills Residents Assn. Cameras would change people's habits, he added, and "do it real quick."

Beverly Hills officials have been trying to get a camera system since 2006, only to find little traction in the Legislature. It's one thing to use cameras to catch drivers who run red lights -- an obvious danger. But deploying them to nab speeders has been a touchier issue.

Besides Big Brother concerns, pop culture has long celebrated Americans who goose the gas, a la "Smokey and the Bandit" or Sammy Hagar's anthem “I Can’t Drive 55.” And speeding is the rule, not the exception, on many roads in Southern California. In 2007, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that the average speed on freeways outside Los Angeles was 78 mph, well above the 70 mph limit.

But Beverly Hills officials are pushing again this year for a bill sponsored by State Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), SB-1325{ED06AAC3-8E06-4148-A166-526DCBFEEA9A}&DE={509A08DF-D11B-4A3F-A8AC-6B02B89B1323}.