The next phase of the city of Kingston’s attempt to reduce the annual incidence of death and serious injury caused by automobiles and their drivers to zero is well underway.
Indefatigable and unblinking, artificial intelligence-powered speed zone cameras installed at three locations near schools in the city of Kingston have been active since April, capturing the license plates of drivers traveling over the school zone speed limits by 11 mph or more.
After being reviewed and confirmed by members of the city parking staff, tickets are then mailed to the home addresses of offending drivers.
Tickets for speeding in a school zone carry a $50 fine, with late fees increasing the total by $25.
The cameras are mounted at locations approaching George Washington Elementary School on Washington Avenue; out on Delaware Avenue, in the vicinity of John F. Kennedy Elementary School; and approaching Kingston High School on Broadway, sharing the same block with City Hall.
The speed limits in these school zones see the citywide speed limit of 25 mph slow to a positive crawl of 15 mph outside elementary schools from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 20 mph outside the high school.
Anecdotally, the most ire is reserved for the extended hours of school zone speed limits outside the high school, which remain in effect until 8 p.m., long after school is out but, presumably, when after-school activities may still be taking place.
Children need not be present at any location for the cameras to do their work.
Heading easterly on Delaware Avenue, a street from which a driver can’t even see the elementary school, no flashing lights have been installed to call the driver’s attention to the zone of automated peril they are about to enter.
At all locations, signs have been erected that feature the curiously old-fashioned stencil of a black Nikon film camera on a white background, with vertical lines suggesting a flash bulb has gone off and a warning, “traffic laws photo enforced.”
And then there are splashes of fluorescent yellow meant to attract the eyes of the driver to the lowered speed limits painted there.
Over on Washington Avenue, drivers approaching from both directions are warned with flashing lights. On Broadway, outside the high school, there are no flashing lights to warn drivers coming in either direction.
This mild encroachment of the surveillance state is the result of home rule legislation passed at the state level at the request of Sen. Michelle Hinchey and Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha and with the full support of the Common Council and Mayor Steve Noble.
The cameras, the operating system and the artificial intelligence are all courtesy of the contract the city of Kingston signed with Jenoptik Mobility Systems, a multinational company based in Germany with operations on at least three continents.
“Asked how residents of Kingston can be assured their private information will be kept in-house, rather than distributed, sold or used to train artificial intelligence, the mayor’s office responded: “The only information collected is the license plate number and the rate of speed. This information is not used in any other way than to issue violations.”
Unless renewed, the contract, which Jenoptik Mobility Systems Inc. received after responding to an RFP, expires after two years.
The terms of the contract allow for a 70/30 division of the revenues generated by the speeding fines, with the city receiving 70%.
In the 2026 budget, a new revenue line had been added that anticipates $200,000 to be raised from unwary or unrepentant drivers over the course of the year’s school speed zone enforcement.
In a mid-April announcement ahead of the end of a 30-day grace period, mayor Steve Noble assured city residents that “This is not about earning extra money for the city’s coffers, it’s about the safety of our schoolchildren.”
Over a 15-day period before the program began to penalize speeding drivers in earnest, Noble communicated that 4,908 warning tickets had been issued, an average of 327 tickets a day.
Noble also shared that the average speeds the cameras had recorded in the school zones during the grace period were 30 to 33 mph, double the limit allowed.
One hotrodder on Delaware Avenue near JFK Elementary blew through the school zone at 64 mph, while another leadfoot was clocked at 63 mph on Broadway in front of the high school.
As Noble noted, “We expect to see violations drop 75% after the first four months — the economic incentive is that strong.”
Safer roads, safer vehicles and safer speeds, it’s thought, taken altogether along with drivers compelled to drive in a safer manner — slower being safer — will inevitably lead to better outcomes. This is the theory of the Safe System Approach, touted by the New York State Department of Transportation and formally adopted by the city of Kingston in 2023.
For now, state law limits the number of cameras allowed to be operated within city limits. Any expansion in the number of cameras would require returning to the state to ask for further legislation.
Kingston represents the fourth municipality to adopt the school zone speeding technology after Syracuse, Albany and the five boroughs of New York City.
Deconstructionist. Partisan of Kazantzakis. rokoszmost@gmail.com
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© 2022 Ulster Publishing
© 2022 Ulster Publishing
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