Dear New Yorkers,  

Today my office released a new audit of the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) speed camera program, which found that speed cameras effectively reduce speeding and crashes. We wanted to investigate how coordination, management, and DOT’s oversight could be improved.

Simply put, speed cameras reduce speeding, prevent crashes, and save lives. Our auditors found that the number of speeding violations has reduced over time, and that traffic accidents in the vicinity of the speeding cameras have also come down – even though overall trends show increased numbers of accidents due to unsafe speeding.

At the same time, our audit found that New York City drivers are increasingly using illegally obscured, temporary, or ghost license plates to slink past speed cameras undetected and avoid fines. This is a new problem that has cheated the City out of more than $100 million each year, and growing.

That’s a lot of money. All this forgone revenue could be used to expand the speed camera program in the future. Despite a sharp uptick in reckless drivers beating the system, there is no evidence that DOT has taken steps to combat this worsening problem.

Let me be clear: Like so many New Yorkers, I’ve been served more than a couple speeding tickets over the years. In each case, I pled guilty and paid a $50 fine. This is an issue that I’ve fallen short on, so I know how important it is to improve our responsible driving. In order to keep our streets safe, all drivers (including me) must change their behavior after getting caught speeding on camera.

So, what’s the green light to keep us moving forward? It’s clear that better coordination between city agencies is needed to tackle the twin issues of ghost license plates and speeding. For one, DOT, NYPD, and MTA Bridges and Tunnels could work more efficiently and closely together.

In our new audit, my office issues several recommendations on how DOT can strengthen the programmatic and fiscal effectiveness of the speed camera program – from improving its billing process, to requesting access to camera footage for all rejected speeding events on a regular basis. I’m pleased that DOT has agreed with all our recommendations.

You can read our full list of recommendations to DOT in the full audit here.

I know we can rev up our engines and move full-speed ahead toward better management and safer streets (just don’t drive too fast past those speed cameras).

Thanks,

Brad