Speed Cameras Save Lives, But Who Decides How They're Used?

Speed cameras are popping up in school zones across Florida, California, Hawaii, and more than two dozen other states. The safety case is solid: research shows cameras cut speeding by 70% or more, and one Maryland study found they reduced serious injuries by 39%. Roads that kill fewer kids are roads we should build.

But there's a problem hiding in plain sight, and it's making people furious.

Carlos Acosta, a retired Miami-Dade sheriff's deputy, got two speed camera tickets in school zones near his house, both in the middle of the day, when schools were in session indoors and the kids the cameras supposedly protect weren't anywhere near the road. He's right to be angry. If the purpose is safety, why ticket drivers when there's no safety risk?

This is where good infrastructure policy runs into bad governance. Speed cameras can work. The evidence is real. But when you deploy them outside school hours, you're not protecting kids anymore. You're running a hidden tax on drivers, and calling it public safety.

The backlash got worse when the Trump administration's Department of Transportation quietly stripped speed cameras from its official list of "Proven Safety Countermeasures", alongside bike lanes and other speed-reduction measures. The FHWA said it was aligning recommendations with administration priorities. Translation: politics, not evidence.

This matters because infrastructure is supposed to be one place we agree. We need roads that work and keep people alive. The Common Good Party's infrastructure position is clear: nine of eighteen ASCE categories still fail. Poor infrastructure costs every American household $2,700 per year. Build it right. Build it fast.

But "build it right" means something. It means the tool matches the purpose. It means you don't use safety as cover for revenue. And it means government can't just strip proven safety measures off the books because they're inconvenient to a political agenda.

See the full NPR reporting here.