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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowSome Indiana lawmakers want to authorize the installation of work zone speed cameras along the state’s highways to photograph speeding cars and fine lead-footed motorists.
Members of the General Assembly’s Interim Study Committee on Transportation advanced a plan Wednesday to permit using the traffic cameras, The Times of Northwest Indiana reported.
The panel will decide later this month whether to officially recommend that Indiana’s Republican-controlled Legislature consider making the state the sixth with work zone speed cameras.
State Rep. Chuck Moseley, a committee member who proposed a failed automated enforcement bill in the last House session, said he’s determined to get the measure passed in 2020.
“This is not a speed enforcement issue for me. This is a safety enforcement issue for me,” Moseley said.
Leaders of Indiana Constructors Inc., a statewide construction trade group, emphasized to the committee the need for enhanced work zone safety, underscoring state records that show work zone crashes jumped to 6,370 in 2017 from 2,878 in 2013.
Though the construction trade committee acknowledged Indiana has more work zones after legislators increased fuel taxes and vehicle dues in 2017 to subsidize infrastructure projects, they also noted motorists appear to be driving more recklessly because of speed and technological distractions.
“We want to get the work done, but we want to do it safely,” said Dan Brown, ICI board chairman.
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Excellent; ‘hope this gets passed and enforced. When I-69 was being built northeast from Indianapolis decades ago, a friend of mine had his only sibling, his younger sister, killed by a speeder in a work zone. She was working in the construction zone as a summer job from college, holding one of the warning signs telling people to slow down as they entered the construction zone, when a semi with an inattentive driver mowed her down. Although that was close to 50 years ago, my friend misses his sister to this day; they were very close.
Safety first for sure but let’s make sure that works zones are actual zones that are being worked in not miles of road that is marked as a work zone with now work underway. And while your at it eliminate the speed differential for cars vs trucks on our highways the current 65 vs 70 creates unsafe congestion.
I was in Scotland this summer and they had cameras on the Motorway that recorded your plate number and then calculated your average speed over the distance between the cameras and would send tickets based on your average speed, and not just the speed when you pass the camera. This made the traffic flow smoothly and evenly with no jamming on the brakes before you got to the cameras, like I have seen in Italy.