'A Simple Flip Of The Switch': Speed Cameras In NYC Officially Go 24/7

NEW YORK CITY — A years-long effort to turn on New York City's speed cameras 24/7 ended with what Mayor Eric Adams called "a simple flip of the switch."

As Adams, lawmakers and traffic safety advocates ceremonially flipped that switch Monday from a Manhattan intersection, a light started to blink above their heads that symbolized 2,000 speed cameras in 750 school zones starting to run round-the-clock.

"That is saying to those who are speeding: you are caught, you will be deterred from doing it again,” Adams said.

But as "simple" as the switch flipping may have seemed, this is New York and the gears of government grind slow.

The speed camera program started in 2013 with straightforward goals — install speed cameras, ticket motorists who drive dangerously, keep streets safer — only to see them undercut by how state lawmakers set it up.

Lawmakers not only put the program under the control of the state's Department of Transportation, rather than the city's, but they also passed a law that decreed the cameras be shut off from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., as well as weekends.

City officials and advocates argued the restrictions hamstrung the cameras' effectiveness, and thus left New Yorkers at risk.

Their calls for 24/7 speed cameras grew louder when traffic deaths in the city and nation started to spike in 2020. And, finally, New York City-based lawmakers this year successively pushed through legislation in Albany to expand the program's coverage.

The law allowed the cameras to run all-day, all-night and year-round starting Aug. 1 — or Monday.

“That means we will no longer leave nights and weekends unprotected,” said Meera Joshi, the city's deputy mayor for operations.

And studies show the cameras do provide protection.

Adams noted 59 percent of traffic fatalities in the city happened when the cameras could not operate.

“When cameras are operating, we see a 72 percent reduction when the cameras are operating in speeding, and a 14 percent reduction in injuries from traffic crashes,” he said.

Motorists caught by the cameras will receive a $50 fine.