MD Cities Create Fake School Zones To Install Speed Cameras
According to TheNewspaper.com, Maryland cities will create brand new “school zones” in an attempt to issue speed camera tickets on roads that previously had no need of the designation.
The speed cameras were authorized six months ago after intensive lobbying efforts by the ticket camera industry. The legislature knew that the driving public would not approve of speed cameras being allowed on all roads so they included a provision that the cameras could only be used within a half mile of a school zone as a way to combat opposition.
The city of Baltimore has decided to exploit a loophole in the legislation and is creating new school zones to allow speed cameras to be installed. TheNewspaper.com explains:
The city’s plan is to take a number of roads that are within the legally required distance to a school but are in areas where children do not regularly walk. Baltimore will install “school zone” signs on these roads for the sole purpose of meeting the legal requirement that the speed cameras be used only in a school zone. The new zones include Charles Street at Lake Avenue, Northern Parkway at Greenspring, Pulaski Highway at Monument Street and Roland Avenue at West Cold Spring.
Baltimore is not alone. In New Carrollton, two of the five proposed speed camera locations were not in actual, existing school zones.
“Speaking as a parent of two small children myself,” the editor of StopBigBrotherMD.org wrote, “if these were legitimate locations for school zones we might ask why public officials put the safety of children at risk by not bothering to do the inexpensive bare minimum step of marking the locations as school zones and alerting drivers to the presence of a school nearby… until there was a revenue motive for doing so.”
The city’s greed will also have negative long-term effects on school zone safety in the state. Once drivers figure out that these fake school zones never have any children near them, they are likely to begin ignoring them. Eventually this will lead to drivers having less respect for legitimate school zones in the area.
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Boulder, CO has had fake railroad crossings for at least the last decade. (Actually they are places where a railroad once ran — the tracks were removed long ago, but the signs are still up in order to ticket truck and bus drivers for not stopping where the tracks used to be.)
USDOT could easily kill such schemes by outlawing them in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. It wouldn’t even take an act of Congress. Let’s lobby them.
John David Galt have you been ticketed at the non railroad crossing or just seen this in a place like thenewspaper.com which has false statements all the time? Every crossing that I have ever seen that is not used any more has an exempt sign on it.
The most common means used these days to advance matters that are bad for us and good for special interests is to keep us distracted arguing over anything other than the point itself. Randy’s posts are ever so effective in doing that here. Shunning and ignoring are appropriate responses for such persons.
The facts are that the speed camera industry convinces municipalities to install cameras with promises of big revenues. The contracts call for a percentage of the revenue to be paid to the companies. If revenues drop below a prescribed level (people becoming more law abiding and reducing their speeds), various tactics are used to keep revenues up. In the case of stop light cameras, reduced revenues call for shortening the yellow light time, resulting in more violations and a less safe driving environment.
The whole premise is flawed, because the speed and stop light cameras are for generating revenue, not for law enforcement or safer roadways. They should be rejected out of hand, and if law enforcement is the goal, then enforce the laws, don’t just harvest the golden egg money while keeping the goose on life support.
John you are changing the point of this blog. It is not about red light cameras. It is about slowing people down in residential areas where kids are. It is pretty easy for any company to promote something about safety when you and others ignore it by traveling 40 mph in a school zone.
Slow down closer to the limit in residential areas and and these cameras will have no affect. You keep saying what if this and what if that. How about looking at the facts as they are and if the facts are wrong then do something.
The blog is about the creation of phony school zones to justify installing speed cameras, not people that are speeding.
According to blog:
1) MD Cities Create Fake School Zones To Install Speed Cameras
–>If local gov’t are installing SC in location that is not “Routinely used by pupils for access to or egress from school buildings or grounds,” then the SC are not being installed in accordance with the intent of the law. IMHO.
2) sites example from a source: “The city of Baltimore has decided to exploit a loophole in the legislation and is creating new school zones to allow speed cameras to be installed.”
–>The newspaper.com is not the only source to indicate that Balt. is creating new of expanding existing school zones.
The sources That I have seen do not indicate if any studies was conducted to give a reason for expanding the current school zone areas to include areas that were (until now) not part of a school zone.
I think, though I am not sure, that the gov’t official would have been eager to state, for the record, the existence of any studies showing support for SC.
3) negative long-term effects on school zone safety due to #1
I do not know if #3 will occur.
==============================================
How do you know this?
There are people in these areas that have complained that people are driving way too fast around their kids in and around school zones and have asked for help in slowing down these drivers.
It may be true, but how do you know. What are your sources?
mithrandir
1) Where are the facts if there are any kids not walking to school in those zones? There are no facts given. No one even checked from any of the reports presented from NMA!!! If you have not noticed thenewpaper.com and NMA make things up and exagerate everything they print.
2) Maybe the city of Baltimore needs to expand school zones if vehicles are traveling well over what they should be where kids are!!!!!!
3) It is not up to me to determine sources that say cars are traveling way to fast. The fact is if they are traveling way too fast they will get tickets because 12 mph over any limit where kids are walking to school and crossing intersections is too much.
We do not have speed cameras in school zones here because we do not need them. The police check the areas once in a while and do not give out $40 tickets but more like $150 and maybe more. They do not let you have 11 mph over the limit in school zones either. Guess what? The people slow down in school zones here.
mithrandir so much for your high view and can do no wrong reporters. Guess what? They were wrong. And NMA was stupid to not investigate for themselves. The school speed camera that was replorted at Greenspring Ave & W Northern Pkwy was not a speed camera. It was a red light camera. As I said before, before speaking up like an idiot look for the facts yourself. So much for this idiot report. It never did sound correct to me. I told you and others here to look at the facts first. NMA and the newspaper.com would rather make things up though.
http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/government/transportation/redlightcameras.php
1) Where are the facts if there are any kids not walking to school in those zones? There are no facts given. No one even checked from any of the reports presented from NMA!!! If you have not noticed thenewpaper.com and NMA make things up and exagerate everything they print.
===========================================
1-> Does wabc make up stories as well? I also do not see any facts that kids are walking to school at those intersections.
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2) Maybe the city of Baltimore needs to expand school zones if vehicles are traveling well over what they should be where kids are!!!!!!
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2->No information provided by story regarding if intersections (for SC) are used by students to travel to/from school. The intersections were not marked as part of a school zone until this law was passed that permitted local gov’t to install SC.
One question that comes to mind. Are they installing SC at all intersections
within a 1/2 mile radius of all schools? Are they only picking intersections that have a high volume of traffic with a greater likelihood of possible targets? Afterall this is about safety correct. why not put SC on each intersection.
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3) It is not up to me to determine sources that say cars are traveling way to fast. The fact is if they are traveling way too fast they will get tickets because 12 mph over any limit where kids are walking to school and crossing intersections is too much.
===================================
You stated that people were complaining about fast drivers. I asked for your source(s) indicating that people were complaining.
SC will target anything that triggers its speed setting. I accept that as a given. I do not like mechanical devices since I would prefer a human (that could apply some discernment and common sense) at the spot to enforce traffic laws.
——————————————————————————-
I do not know if you are familiar with some of these roads, but northern parkway is a larger 4-6 lane thoroughfare through large parts of northern Baltimore. The intersection of W. Northern Prkwy and Greenspring rd borders on a hospital and a wooded area. (it is also near the Preakness ==Pimlico race track)
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=2905972831517004073&q=w+northern+parkway+greenspring+ave&hl=en&cd=1&cad=src:pplink&ei=fcL4SsT2I6H-zQTDks23Ag
The nearest schools that I can find are a private school k-12 waldorff school that is about 2500-3000 ft south of W. Northern Prkwy.
mithrandir school students in high school or upper grade school do not ride bikes to school a half mile? I had to walk to pick up the bus a half a mile away. Report back to us what the speed limit is at the location in the news report so that we actually know how fast people have to drive to get a ticket.
Also make sure you look at this report:
http://wjz.com/local/speed.camera.baltimore.2.1238888.html
http://wjz.com/local/speed.camera.baltimore.2.1238888.html
Many who live in Rodgers Forge know people often speed down the road, which has an elementary and middle school on it.
The county’s traffic survey backed up that observation, and because of that, police say the area is one of 15 to get the new cameras.
================================================
At least this area has a study to support the placement of the SC.
Good link to support your side.
I have walked and ridden more than 2km to/from school although I did not need to cross a large highway.
I know that many communities use crossing guards to stop traffic to permit safe crossing by students. (usually during morning/afternoon commute to/from school)
==============================================
http://wjz.com/local/speed.cameras.2.1137410.html
Although not everyone is convinced that these SC are for safety.
mithrandir when it comes down to it you say it is fine to do well over 12 mph over the speed limits posted in the city. Even if there are no kids in the city that excess should not be allowed.
I believe in appropriate limits for appropriate settings.
I have no issue with 25mph school zones or other appropriate PSL.
I will not intentionally exceed a school psl.
If govt would post appropriate PSL there would be fewer speeders. I also think more people would respect the PSL they do see.
I generally will drive in a safe manner at an appropriate speed.
I generally do not like mechanical (speed/RL/toll/etc) traffic machinery.
==============================================
I wish you well Randy, although I do not agree with much of what you say regarding Speed Limits.
randy is obviously a lobbyist for the ticketing companies haha, you’re really “passionate” about this issue. thank goodness you’re a more reliable source than ABC.
No Tom I am not a lobbyist. There are people in these areas that have complained that people are driving way too fast around their kids in and around school zones and have asked for help in slowing down these drivers. If you were in charge of the local government you would tell them to go jump in the lake because we should not be giving tickets for 12 mph over the limit in these areas but should allow 20 or 30 mph over the limit because their kids just do not matter. They would only be a small blip in the statistics if something happened to them.
If the school zone is 25 mph and you can not slow down to 36 mph you are the one with a problem.
Tom I just went online and checked the maps. There are 6 schools within 1/2 mile radius of the first intersection listed. This is also a residential area as shown with google maps. Have you or anyone else here did any type of investigation of the facts? I forgot. The facts are to be ignored and suppressed on this site. Where is the heck is this fact in the ABC report? As I said they did not do any investigation.
Randy – seriously now…if the school zones haven’t been found necessary for the past 50 years, why all of a sudden are they necessary now?
Because kids are walking to school now more than ever.
Wait, wait… I think it’s the opposite. Nevermind.
Bill because what has the population done in the past 50 years? Has it gone up about 2 to 3 times larger? You have never seen new schools built? You do not have any common sense?
Did the population double in the last year? Since the zones weren’t needed then, and are now…
Baltimore County, 1980 – 650k
Baltimore County, 2008 – 785k
Baltimore city did almost the exact opposite.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division
James maybe the road analysis was not done until recently? James report back how many tickets you get with this change. 1980 was not 50 years ago. No schools have been built in Baltimore since 1980? What was the speed on the roadways in 1980? Did that go down also? Were they traveling close to the speed limits in Baltimore county in 1980? Do you always drive 12 mph over the limit in a residential area?
[...] Baltimore is creating school zones out of thin air in order to install traffic cameras to raise reve… for the cash strapped city: The city’s plan is to take a number of roads that are within the legally required distance to a school but are in areas where children do not regularly walk. Baltimore will install “school zone” signs on these roads for the sole purpose of meeting the legal requirement that the speed cameras be used only in a school zone. The new zones include Charles Street at Lake Avenue, Northern Parkway at Greenspring, Pulaski Highway at Monument Street and Roland Avenue at West Cold Spring. [...]
And how much revenue can you collect when you have signs warning you that cameras are there and do not get tickets until 12 mph over the limit and tickets only $40? Sound like millions of dollars to you? Not to me.
Well, my county just announced that slight limitations on the camera program led to $5million in decreased revenues.
And yes, 5 million sounds like millions.
Oh wait, we don’t like real numbers on this site. You can pretend I said $5 if it would make you feel better.
Ok James. So how much does that amount to net profit which I call revenue/income to the city ? How much do you think that would come out to afer a year when people finally learn to slow down? Would you be stupid enough to get a ticket every week? Maybe the revenue decrase comes from not giving tickets untill excessivly over the limit like 12 mph over which is huge in a 25 mph zone.
Not found on Md Dot site.
Following was found regarding school zones.
http://www.mdot.state.md.us/News/2009/May%202009/Speed%20Camera%20Law.htm
http://www.sha.maryland.gov/OOTS/SZ-ASE_Brochure.pdf
SHA defines a “School Zone” as a segment of highway
located within a School Area that is:
(1) Routinely used by pupils for access to or egress
from school buildings or grounds,
(2) Established by official action, and
(3) Designated by appropriate signs.
The Maryland Annotated Code (TR § 21?803.1) allows
School Zones to be established within a one?half mile
radius of any school.
However, this does not mean that all roads within a one?half mile radius of a school are considered School Zones.
The SHA, or the local authority
having jurisdiction over the road, must officially establish
a School Zone and designate it with the appropriate signs
before it becomes a School Zone.
Found on WABC news website
http://www.abc2news.com/news/local/story/Baltimore-Expanding-School-Zones-for-Speed-Cameras/GR1yE5T6YEekg4h5THv-lg.cspx?rss=702
Baltimore Expanding School Zones for Speed Cameras?
At least two of Baltimore City’s chosen sites for speed cameras are getting a closer look from drivers and critics; the intersections of Charles and Lake Avenue and Northern Parkway and Greenspring Road.
As it is now, the Northern Parkway/Greenspring intersection is not a school zone. There are no signs, no crosswalks and not even a sidewalk. The closest school is Dr. Ronald N. Patterson Senior Academy exactly a half mile down Greenspring Road and right now, that school zone starts two tenths of a mile down the road from Northern Parkway, but those dimensions are about to expand to include the busy thoroughfare.
[Does this look like a school zone to you?] “Not at all, said driver Sherman Stephenson, “I guess revenue is revenue.”
Workers installed speed cameras at the intersection today, the signs formally calling it a school zone will come later. A dangerous precedent says Delegate Patrick McDonough.
“If we accept what they are doing they can technically put a sign on the exit and entrance of Baltimore city and say this is a school zone and put cameras on every block of the city and raise a hell of a lot of money.”
The city says it is simply following state law, listening to the recommendations of the community and placing these cameras where speeding is more of a problem.
“We’re following state law that entitles us to put speed cameras within a half mile radius of a school zone,” said Adrienne Barnes with the Baltimore Department of Transportation.
The city maintains it is all in an effort to keep people safe and save lives….not make money.
[Does it look like a school zone to you?] “It doesn’t appear to be,” said driver Maxine Mobley, “I’ve never taken it as a school zone.”
But it is now in the eye of the camera.
Baltimore has 14 of its 51 cameras up and running. Citations began to be issued as of November 1, 2009.
Copyright 2009 The E.W. Scripps Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
FACTS THAT ARE PURPOSEFULLY LEFT OUT BY THE BIASED REPORTING OF thenewspaper.com and NMA. If you can not stay within 12 mph of the limit in school and work zones you should be ticketed.
Other provisions of the legislation permitting the limited use of speed cameras include:
Speed cameras cannot be used on major bridges and tunnels;
A citation may only be issued if driver is going at least 12 mph faster than the speed limit;
Conspicuous signs must be posted to give drivers adequate notice;
Upon implementation of the program, a 30-day warning period is required before any tickets are given;
Fines cannot exceed $40.00. The District Court will set the specific amount;
Localities can only keep an amount of net revenue not greater than 10 percent of their operating budget. The rest must be turned over to the Comptroller;
For three years, net revenues collected from fines generated by speed cameras in work zones will go to an account for state police roadside enforcement activities.
“Ideally, every motorist will slow down and stay alert in work zones, limiting the number of speeding violations issued through the camera system,” said State Highway Administrator Neil J. Pedersen, who also serves as the Governor’s Highway Safety Representative. “If we issue no citations but drivers slow down and prevent tragic crashes, then the program will be a success.”
All that stuff you listed randy is not the issue here. That is totally irrelevant. The issue here is makeing fake school zones just so you can put a speed camera up in a certain specific location.
I am from MD and i hate this law. if you want to get more specific randy you left some things out too. Randy is so biased he leaves things out. How about the fact that every county gets to choose whether or not to implement the program. So far only Baltimore County and City have approved the use of speeding cameras under the new law. Excluding Montgomery county who has had them for 3 years now and can place them in only in areas with a speed limit of 35 or below.
But this is messed up to make up a school zone because there is an area you want to put the camera in and your not supposed to.
Randall where are your facts that this is not a school zone where they are putting them up? Is it a place where kids do not walk to school or wait for a school bus? The only thing I have seen from reading these articles is that they talked to a driver and he thought it was probably not an area for a school zone. That is real scientific. Talk to any driver you find and take a one person survey?
If there are no tickets given because people are driving within the 12 mph over the limit guess what? They will find it too costly to keep cameras. At the same time people are driving at a safer speed around kids. Pretty easy to get rid of the cameras if you drive like you are supposed to. Maybe that is why they are only putting them in certain cities because that is where people are driving too fast.
Randall it is very easy to have a 14 hour camera set up to see if there are or are not any kids traveling on what you call non school zones. You would then have facts and could take it to the local media. I am sure that has already been thought of though and was not done because the areas already were required to do a complete analysis of the area before they are allowed to place the cameras in the first place.
mithrandir your statement :
“As it is now, the Northern Parkway/Greenspring intersection is not a school zone. There are no signs, no crosswalks and not even a sidewalk. The closest school is Dr. Ronald N. Patterson Senior Academy exactly a half mile down Greenspring Road and right now, that school zone starts two tenths of a mile down the road from Northern Parkway, but those dimensions are about to expand to include the busy thoroughfare.”
This statment says there are no signs. That does not meet any of the requirements of the law. So if it does not meet any of the requirements how do you know they are giving tickets there? Dah. From what I have read they neet to do traffic analysis of the area in and around the school zones. I would guess to do that you have to have speed recordings such as peed cameras to do analysis. I guess NMA is too stupid of an organization to realize such a thing. I think the IQ of this organization is about 20.
Below is the requirement I described above:
Installing speed cameras along a State highway requires
SHA approval. The local jurisdiction must complete an
application and submit the appropriate documentation to
SHA for review and approval. Typical documentation
includes:
A permit application and vicinity map,
A traffic safety study,
Plans for the ASE system, and
A before?after evaluation plan.
Randy,
Not my stmt. Statement as reported on abc2news.com
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Athough from MD dot it would appear that speed cameras should be restricted to areas that are
(1) Routinely used by pupils for access to or egress
from school buildings or grounds,
(2) Established by official action, and
(3) Designated by appropriate signs.
If a location does not meet condition 1 then the Scamera should not be placed and used.
mithrandir again I ask how do you know they are giving tickets in the location in question and how do you know that there are no students that travel that area. If you give some facts to back up your biased responses it will help your case if you are right. Just because there is a news report on something that presents no facts means little to me or anyone with a brain.
Randy,
We are prisoners of our sources.
I do not know that Cleopatra existed either except by the sources I rely as credible sources.
It is impossible for one to have direct knowledge of everything. We need to depend on reliable sources.
It is possible for news to be biased or misreported. Unfortunately I can only base my opinions from the information I have available.
As I stated:
Although from MD dot it would appear that speed cameras should be restricted to areas that are
(1) Routinely used by pupils for access to or egress
from school buildings or grounds,
(2) Established by official action, and
(3) Designated by appropriate signs.
If a location does not meet condition 1 then the Scamera should not be placed and used.
Yes Mithraner, why even have a court system when a repoter can spend one or two hours investigating a report and get all the facts.
mithrandir I just went online and checked the maps. There are 6 schools within 1/2 mile radius of one of the intersections listed. This is also a residential area as shown with google maps. Have you or anyone else here did any type of investigation of the facts? I forgot. The facts are to be ignored and suppressed on this site.
Where is the reference for the statement “The city’s plan is to take a number of roads that are within the legally required distance to a school but are in areas where children do not regularly walk.” ?
NO where in any of the articles does it say where such statements came from?
The statements came from thenewspaper.com of course because they do not need references for things they make up.
I want to see the survey that was taken that concludes that at any of these locations kids do not travel to or from school.
Oh, I forgot, NMA does not want to bother with getting the facts because it is much easier to make things sound bad without the actual facts to slow you down.
The last act of government is to loot the country.
George they are gona getchya they are gona getchya.
What are you talking about?
I don’t live in MD, and have not plans to visit.
George you are the one that said government was going to loot the country. They have not looted me yet. I guess that means they have looted you. Let’s have the names of the government officials that you say are pocketing the loot? If you say it is not a person then it must be everyone else is looting themselves. Your paronoia is showing again.
The school speed camera that was reported at Greenspring Ave & W Northern Pkwy was not a speed camera. It was a red light camera. So much for this idiot report. It never did sound correct to me. I told everyone here to look at the facts first. NMA and the newspaper.com would rather make things up though.
I did not check everything else in this report but I would bet most of the rest is wrong also.
I would bet almost anything that there will be no retractions of the mistakes.
http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/government/transportation/redlightcameras.php
So if there is one error, we can ignore everything they say?
You’ve had more than one error for each article you write. And you never issue retractions. Should we assume everything you say is wrong?