Will speed cameras encourage drivers to drive recklessly?

A family friend has devised a way to speed without getting caught: she stops at the center of the camera's path, "confusing" the camera and allowing her to slam the pedal to the floor again and continue on her merry, Speed Racer way. She'd been caught enough, she decided, and after stopping in the middle by accident, realized her "out" and has merrily shared her sneaky behavior with all who know her. And strangely, she's so upset over my auto-pedestrian accident (the "passive voice" is okay, I think it was a genuine "accident") that she'll lecture any one she sees jaywalking, standing to close to the edge on the sidewalk, or crossing against the sidewalk, even though neither of those factors were involved in my accident. She yells at motorists, too, and has lectured me more than once on appropriate footwear.

And though I adore her, this vast rift in her attitude toward speeding and pedestrian safety is a disconcerting problem. Roads are built to gets us from Point A to Point B, but roads and cities are not developed as a race course, and with Maryland considering a state-wide program, and the Internet abuzz of an infringement on a motorist's rights and how to dupe the cameras, I worry we'll deteiorate into amateur NASCAR drivers. My family friend isn't alone: an article from The Wall Street Journal in March highlighted the aggressive tactics motorists take against speed cameras, and it seems the midlest response is taking a pick axe to the camera (altering the appearance of your license plate is against the law, people).

Motorists have, disturbingly, banded together in an effort to eschew the law:

Drivers -- many accusing law enforcement of using spy tactics to trap unsuspecting citizens -- are fighting back with everything from pick axes to camera-blocking Santa Clauses. They're moving beyond radar detectors and CB radios to wage their own tech war against detection, using sprays that promise to blur license numbers and Web sites that plot the cameras' locations and offer tips to beat them.

Really? Why don't you just...not speed? I wonder if these same motorists fought the legislation before it was past, which is probably the most efficient way of preventing and stopping the installation of red light and speed cameras. Where was the call to arms then? The protests failed, and the cameras were installed. Maybe you could just drive safely instead?

Apparently not. $536 later, a woman "knocked over" a tax collector in New Britain, Connecticut, and, The WSJ says, "...jumped in the car and drove away. She was later arrested for a hit-and-run."

Montgomery County's pilot program resulted in $9.6 million in fiscal revenue last year. At $40 a ticket, that's a staggering number of tickets, and it makes my heart sink. DC's cameras are stationed throughout the city, including quiet residential neighborhoods. Seated in one car last year, the driver sped furiously forward after a flash of light alerted us to a speed ticket. Perhaps, it was reasoned, the dramatic increase in speed will make it harder for the plates to be identified.

This is aided by Trapster, the iPhone application designed to help drivers, which AwareSpot, the company behind the application, calls "the speed trap sharing system." Users submit speed traps by phone or text to alert drivers, who slow down or avoid the area in question.

Here's what Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) , has to say about both the article and Trapster:

I’m waiting for the moment some fool checking his “Trapster” on his PDA blows a light and crashes — made it through an entire article without mentioning a.) the number of people killed in red-light running crashes (uh, more than 9/11 every year); b.) how countries with an increased adoption of the technology have made more impressive gains in their traffic safety records and c.) that rear-end crashes, which critics always cite as rising after installation of the cameras, are relatively minor in nature; while side impact crashes, which studies have shown have been reduced after installation of the cameras, tend to be more serious, and often fatal — to compare them so casually is typical of myopic mainstream-media reporting when it comes to traffic safety.

And, echoing a comment from a few weeks ago, about what we learn about safe driving in school and its apparently irrelevance in the real world:

Not to mention that the fact that I was taught, as every driver is, to maintain a sufficient following distance from the vehicle ahead — so much so that you could stop in time if the person ahead had to do something like slam on their brakes (particularly at complicated places like intersections).

I'm not sure how I feel about speed cameras. Even a paranoid, annoying worry wart like myself speeds (sometimes through the intersection where I was smashed into pieces by a car), and I too, am not keen on getting caught by the camera. In this economy? With these loans? I don't want to pay a ticket either. And I'm also not too thrilled with the cameras anyway, in the same way I'm not pleased with city-installed security cameras in high-crime neighborhoods.

But Montgomery County's program is said to have resulted in $2 million in revenue, and allegedly reduced speeding. Other counties and states across the U.S. have found the same: a new source of revenue and safer roads. But what if it doesn't? A 2005 study by Federal Highway Administration found the investment is only a "modest" economic benefit because the cameras increase the number of rear-end crashes. What if even one driver takes the new cameras to drive dangerously? What then?

Update: I may have overreached on my use of the term "passive voice." Greater Greater Washington's David Alpert was kind, polite, and patient enough to point this out to me without a severe flogging and called me "immune" to Entitled Driving Journalist Syndrome in a post today (April 23, 2009). Which is nice, because I had only the headline open in my browser when he e-mailed me, and Alpert is graciously overlooking my attitude when it comes to The Rules (specifically the HOV lane, and the frequenty shouting on 270 North, which I fear will slowly make its way on the blog—so far so good).