Beverly Hills Police Lt. Michael Hines knows the sinking feeling officers get when they pull someone over for speeding only to see other drivers go roaring past. He can't be everywhere at once.
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-4 A3F-A8AC-6B02B89B1323}.
Officials see signs that opposition has begun to soften since a similar bill died in committee in 2006. Along with Arizona, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon and Washington have approved limited use of speed cameras, and public safety officials are either more open to the idea or support it outright.
In January, the Governors Highway Safety Assn., a nonprofit that represents state highway officials nationwide, called for a vast increase in the use of cameras, saying budget cuts had left police agencies with too few officers to do anything about speeders. About 13,000 speeding-related deaths occur each year, about a third of all traffic fatalities, the association said.
Kuehl's bill would create a pilot program allowing a marked mobile unit to set up only in school or residential neighborhoods where the speed limit is 25 mph or less. Signs would be posted to warn drivers that cameras were present, Hines said, and officers would oversee the cameras and inspect the photos before mailing them to vehicle owners with citations attached.
"This is not a technology searching for a problem to solve," said Richard Retting, a senior traffic engineer for the Arlington, Va.-based Insurance Institute. "It frees up police to do what technology can't do. Drivers respond dramatically to the threat of enforcement. . . . Police chiefs recognize it's a force multiplier."
For a visitor from Southern California, it's easy to see why speeding would be common in Scottsdale, a wealthy tourist destination often touted as "The Beverly Hills of the Desert." The city -- like much of the surrounding Phoenix metropolitan area -- is a blend of palmy flatlands and red rock mountains. It also has straight, long and wide boulevards offering plenty of opportunities to reach freeway-like speeds.
When the Loop 101 freeway fully opened in 2002, officials say, residents who had already been complaining about speeding found that conditions quickly got worse. So, in 2006, the city installed six stationary cameras on a stretch of the six-lane road that slices through town. Speeds of at least 100 mph were recorded on 27 of the first 31 days the cameras were turned on.
In a preliminary study, Arizona State University researchers found that average speeds dropped 9.4 mph and injury crashes fell 40% in the first 10 months the cameras were running. (The number of rear-end collisions increased, probably because of drivers braking suddenly to avoid getting tickets.)
