An annual report that ranks each state by whether it has certain safety laws on the books, from teen driver training standards to driving while intoxicated, has added a new criteria – automated speed enforcement.
The 2023 Roadmap to Safety report issued annually by the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety ranks states on whether they have laws permitting speed and red light cameras and if they are use or not. The report will be released and discussed during a live streamed event Tuesday morning.
The addition of automated camera enforcement provisions gave New Jersey a slightly worse ranking than January’s report for having not having seven safety laws deemed necessary by the group.
New Jersey was among 36 states with a yellow or “caution ranking for laws the report says the state lacks. Last year New Jersey was one of 31 states on the “yellow” list.
New Jersey law prohibits the use of speed cameras. The report said 23 states have laws allowing automated enforcement and 19 states have some form of camera enforcement in use. A pilot program in New Jersey using red light cameras at select intersections ended in Dec. 2014.
The Advocates are an “alliance of consumer, medical, public health, law enforcement, safety groups and insurance companies and agents working to improve road safety” according to its website.
“We’ve been supporting use of automated enforcement systems for quite some time,” said Tara Gill, Advocates senior director of advocacy and state legislation. “There’s a tremendous amount of research behind showing they’re effective and lower speeding and the related crashes, fatalities and injuries.”
Gill cited the increase in fatal crashes and the rise of extreme speeding since the coronavirus pandemic as reasons for adding automated speed enforcement to the checklist.
“Speeding is one of three issues the USDOT identified as the lead contributor to the increase in fatalities over the last couple of years,” she said.
Speeding has been among the top four factors in fatal crashes for the past seven years, according to the State Police annual fatal crash analysis. Various safety groups, including the Governor’s Highway Safety Association and AAA, have called for expanding automated speed enforcement.
Both the Federal Highway Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are preparing a program to fund pilot automated and other speed enforcement grants in communities. That joint program is scheduled to be ready in 2024, according to the USDOT.
Drivers, including some who were stung by bogus summonses during the state’s red light camera program, are wary of enforcement cameras, motorist advocates said.
“This so-called highway safety advocacy organization started by for-profit insurance companies continues the political game of using grading criteria to advance its own agenda that is clearly being resisted or rejected in part or whole by a majority of states,” said Steve Carrellas, National Motorists Association state policy director.
The state’s red light camera program ended on Dec. 16, 2014 when red-light cameras at 73 intersections in 24 towns were officially shut off at the end of a 5-year pilot program. Towns contracted with one of two red light camera companies.
The state Department of Transportation was to analyze the data and produce a report recommending whether to continue, kill or modify the camera program. A final report and recommendation to the state legislature were never issued.
The program suffered setbacks in June 2012 when 63 of the 85 red-light cameras in New Jersey had not been tested to ensure yellow lights were properly timed under the law that created the pilot program. The program was suspended in 21 towns until the yellow light time was certified.
In December 2012, contractor Automated Traffic Solutions, had to refund a total of $4.2 million to 500,000 drivers who received tickets at 18 red light camera controlled intersections where yellow light times had not been certified.
In August 2014, the state Judiciary instructed towns to throw out 17,000 camera-generated tickets because a camera company failed to send out summonses to drivers by a 90-day deadline for doing so.
Other criticisms of the program included that cameras improperly ticketed drivers making a legal right turn at a red light, which drivers contended inflated statistics.
“With the addition of automated enforcement, they are now pushing another failed and ineffective - but profitable to insurers - technology that has been universally scorned by motorists,” Carrellas said. “Any low or failing state grade on this “blackmail” criterion should be considered a badge of honor.”
Supporters said the cameras had a positive effect by reducing red light running and the severe “T-bone” crashes that resulted.
Gill said the Advocates’ recommendations have a two-phase data driven checklist for implementing cameras that includes properly set yellow light times and speed limits and posting of those limits, based on Federal Highway Administration recommendations and practices.
In addition to the automated enforcement laws, the state also lacks a primary enforcement rear seat belt law. Now a summons can only be written if the vehicle is stopped for another violation. New Jersey also needs a law requiring children to sit in the rear seat up to age 12 after they grow out of booster seats.
While the state was one of the first to have a graduated drivers license law for teen drivers, it still lacks three laws that meets the advocates recommendations restricting night time driving, carrying other passengers and requiring 70 hours of supervised driving practice.
The state does have an 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. teen driving curfew and regulations limiting teens to having one non-family member passenger in a vehicle.
Two bills to require 50 hours of practice are pending in the state legislature that have not cleared committees. In October, AAA and the Advocates sent a joint letter to the state legislature urging passage of the state senate and assembly bills. They signed a letter from 15 groups urging defeat of two bills that would block the state from disclosing New Jersey driver’s license holders’ information to other states seeking to issue speed camera or red light camera tickets.
In the other categories, New Jersey is ranked well (a “green” rating) for having laws barring texting while driving and restrictions against teen drivers using hand held devices and for laws barring open containers of alcohol and for requiring ignition interlocks for all DUI offenders.
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Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com.
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