Staff editorial: Not camera shy

Any kind of public surveillance, such as the speed cameras College Park City Council plans to install by as early as August, can conjure up paranoid visions of Big Brother. Mostly, the only kind of cameras university students want near Route 1 are the ones that snap Facebook-worthy photos of their good times at Thirsty Turtle.

But while ever-watchful electronic eyes at the top of streetlights can be viewed as a symptom of a police state, in this case, they may save lives. Although the locations have yet to be finalized, the cameras are likely to be perched near the city's five elementary schools, University Boulevard, Rhode Island Avenue, Greenbelt Road and most importantly, Paint Branch Parkway.

Pedestrian safety along Paint Branch Parkway, which crosses with a popular hiker-biker trail, has long been a hot-button issue for the city council; with members such as District 3 Councilwoman Stephanie Stullich arguing for a traffic light to protect citizens from speeding cars. The crosswalk has already been the scene of several accidents involving vehicles and pedestrians over the past year, and the fact none of them have been fatal can only be an incredible stroke of luck.

The speed cameras are intended to foster public safety instead of plug gaps in the city budget, a mission reflected in the reasonable and student-friendly regulations the council approved along with the measure. After the monitors are installed, there will be a 30-day grace period of warnings before $40 tickets are issued for infractions 12 miles over the speed limit, 14 days of which will overlap with the beginning of the fall semester so that students are as aware of the cameras' location as other College Park residents. And while the city will get $24 from each ticket, with the rest going to the firm responsible for placing and maintaining the cameras, Optotraffic, councilmembers aren't counting on benefiting from that revenue for long: Once drivers know where the cameras are, they'll slow down, which is the whole point. Plus, if the city's revenue for camera-issued speeding tickets exceeds 10 percent of its budget, about $13 million, the rest of the money will go to the state.

As part of another effort to prove the speed cameras aren't intended to target university students, the city council Tuesday night passed an amendment that limits the cameras' hours of operation to 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. in compliance with state law of speed monitoring school zones. The law doesn't specifically include public universities along with elementary, middle and high schools, but the council decided to standardize the hours anyway, even though college students are out later than the typical grade-schooler.

Driving 12 miles over the speed limit on Route 95 is one thing, but doing so near an elementary school chock full of pedestrians is quite another. In this case, Big Brother isn't just watching — but watching out.