By Matt Stout
Surveillance cameras have become ubiquitous, allowing police to tap into private feeds to solve crimes, track who’s taking a Cape Cod holiday, or follow the path of a mass shooter through a leafy neighborhood.
Why then, some argue, shouldn’t they be able to give you a speeding ticket, too?
Road safety advocates, Democratic lawmakers, and Governor Maura Healey are pushing varying bills that would allow local and state officials for the first time to install cameras to catch heavy-footed motorists around Massachusetts.
The plans vary widely in scope and detail, and in some cases, are revised versions of traffic camera proposals that have previously failed on Beacon Hill. But as lawmakers grow more open to other forms of automated enforcement, supporters see a disconnect: Law enforcement can already track cars, and yet, the state doesn’t allow using cameras to actually keep speeding drivers in check.
“We can track everybody [and] that’s perfectly fine, right within the law,” said Representative Steven Owens, referring to the widespread use of license plate readers that police employ to track the cars that zoom by them, though not to enforce traffic laws.
“But were you to put a camera at an intersection to catch somebody breaking the law — speeding, running a red light — that’s out of bounds somehow," said the Watertown Democrat, who cosponsored legislation to allow for traffic cameras. “I think we’ve got it backwards.”
Law enforcement in 26 states already uses cameras to help catch speeders, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Municipal officials, including in Boston and Cambridge, have long sought the legal authority to use automated cameras for traffic enforcement, arguing it could lessen the burden on local police, help reduce crashes, and ultimately save lives.
Boston alone averaged more than 3,500 serious crashes a year between 2021 and 2024, and more than one fatal crash per month over those four years, according to city data. It’s already considered one of the most collision-prone cities in the country.
Still, proposals to allow traffic cameras have languished on Beacon Hill, be it because of data privacy concerns or questions of how effective they’d actually be in reducing roadway crashes.
Some advocates also fear that, without the right safeguards, speed surveillance cameras could be wielded to over-police communities of color. Wide racial disparities in traffic stops already exist statewide and in Boston.
Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of the Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights, said that his organization “does not trust automated enforcement systems,” and that any system needs prohibitions on what footage or data can be shared with federal authorities, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That concern is especially pressing given the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown.
“Automation risks deepening racial disparities,” Espinoza-Madrigal said. “Without strict guardrails, the burden will fall disproportionately on the same communities that have long experienced over-policing.”
Supporters of the speed cameras say they’ve tried to address those and other concerns.
Healey’s plan, tucked inside her $63 billion state budget proposal, would allow towns and cities to put speed cameras near school zones and the state to install them in active roadway work sites, offering a narrower version of a “speed camera enforcement” program that she herself pushed a year ago.
Under her new proposal, speed cameras would target drivers going 11 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit in a construction zone or 6 miles per hour or more over the limit in a school zone, with fines ranging from $25 to $100.
Healey, a former state attorney general, said speed cameras can address public safety issues, pointing to crashes that have killed road workers around state highways in recent years.
“We want to do everything we can to keep it safe and reduce the likelihood of any fatalities or accidents,” Healey said after a hearing on her budget plan. “School zones and construction zones make a lot of sense.”
The plan would limit local governments to one camera per every 5,000 residents, meaning Boston — with more than 673,000 — could scatter about 135 cameras across city school zones. Local officials would also have to submit a plan outlining the steps they’re taking “to ensure social and racial equity.”
The language would require municipalities to submit an annual report outlining where they placed cameras and how many fines they issued. But it does not appear to specifically mandate reporting on any racial equity impacts after the cameras have been in use, said Katy Naples-Mitchell, director of the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School.
“That strikes me as highly problematic,” Naples-Mitchell said.
Some road safety groups and Democratic lawmakers are pushing for even broader legislation. Their proposals would empower cities and towns to use cameras to not only ticket speeders but also drivers who run red lights or block an intersection. Cameras could also go on any roadway, and fines would range up to $150.
Senator Will Brownsberger, a Belmont Democrat whose bill mirrors the one Owens and Representative Manny Cruz filed in the House, said policy makers have tried to address privacy concerns in several ways.
Their legislation and Healey’s proposal stipulate that cameras could not be used to take pictures of the front of a vehicle — where they could capture the face of a driver — and any photos would not be admitted to any other “judicial or administrative proceeding” without a court order. All photos would also have to be destroyed within 48 hours after the “final disposition” of a violation. Any photos and other “personal identifying information” collected would not be public records.
“It’s a very limited intrusion,” Brownsberger said, “compared to all the cameras that are all over the place all the time.”
National Highway Safety Administration research shows traffic cameras could cut serious crashes by 25 percent. Advocates note that those improvements could be felt especially in Boston’s communities of color, where data show residents are nearly four times as likely to be hit by cars compared with Bostonians from predominantly white communities.
“We don’t want more policing. But do we want to support people there who are constantly facing a fear of speeding?” said Maha Aslam, LivableStreets Alliance’s transit and streets program manager.
The ultimate goal of traffic cameras, Aslam said, is to alter drivers’ behavior, and effectively “force people to think twice before they act irrationally.”
“They’re taking pictures all the time,” she said of cameras, “and they’re making sure people are on their best behavior.”