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CNN Live Today

Cameras on D.C. Streets Still Source of Controversy

Aired May 03, 2002 - 14:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: In Washington, D.C., some drivers have been proceeding with caution over the past year. They know there is a good chance any moving violation may be caught on camera. For those covert devices, still a source of controversy, Kathleen Koch looks through the camera on the road.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The camera is directly in the front window.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There are five unmarked cars.

LT. PATRICK BURKE, D.C. POLICE: This radar set is mounted on the front part of it here.

KOCH: Strategically positioned around Washington, D.C. wherever speeding is a problem.

BURKE: Any vehicle going over 36, it will indicate on here. If anyone is violating the speed, then a picture will be taken.

KOCH: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety looked at those streets six months before. And six months after, camera speed enforcement started.

RICHARD RETTING, INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY SAFETY: There was significant reduction in speeding at all sites, as high as 90 percent drop in speed violations at one of the sites. So clearly, drivers stopped speeding or at least less likely to speed, in the presence of cameras.

KOCH: But some states, like Hawaii last month, have had to remove radar cameras because of concerns they violate drivers' rights to privacy. Harsher critics have financial as well as constitutional objections.

REP. DICK ARMEY (R-TX), MAJORITY LEADER: The fundamental rights of the American citizen to face their accuser and to be presumed innocent until their proven guilty, cannot be overturned by a technological gimmick and toy that has been a proven fund-raiser for the agency that deploys it.

KOCH: To Washington, D.C., the five radar cameras are worth their weight in gold.

While officers here normally write about 11,000 speeding tickets each year, the cameras, in just seven months, have churned out more than 250,000. It's put $10.5 million into city coffers.

BURKE: My wife speeds. Priests, police, politicians -- everybody speeds.

KOCH: Police insist the cameras are about changing attitudes, not making money.

BURKE: The goal of this program is it's reducing the speeds, which ultimately lead to fewer crashes that are speed-attributable, and fewer injuries on D.C. roadways.

KOCH: The speed cameras aren't foolproof.

(on camera): This is a two-lane road. Can there be a problem if you have two cars side by side that are going to same speed?

BURKE: If two vehicles are side by side, it will not actually take a picture of them because it can't distinguish which one is actually going 36.

KOCH (voice-over): But proof (UNINTELLIGIBLE) might persuade other cities the cameras assets outweigh its liabilities. Kathleen Koch, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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