Yes, I loved school-zone speed cameras

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I couldn’t have been the only one who loved Nassau County’s ill-fated school-zone speed cameras. Yes, lots of people produced plenty of sound and fury after the county instituted them last summer, but there must have been more nut jobs like me.

The cameras, drivers said, were unfair. They nailed you with an $80 ticket every time you exceeded the speed limit. And, people said, they didn’t know the cameras were there. They needed bigger signs and flashing lights to warn them. Perhaps drivers would have preferred Times Square-style billboards. After all, the oversized, neon-yellow school signs that were already there were impossible to spot.

The County Legislature’s Democratic minority gave voice to the naysayers by not only hearing their concerns, but also taking them up as a cause célèbre, amplifying their vitriol. It was political gamesmanship at its finest.

Ed Mangano, the Republican county executive, and the Legislature’s Republican majority called for the speed cameras and lobbied the State Legislature for permission to institute them last April. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation enabling them in June.

People protested from the start. Mangano eventually agreed to reduce the number of hours that the cameras were on. Then, after all the hoopla, the County Legislature voted suddenly –– and unanimously –– to end the camera program last month.

It never should have done so.

From the beginning, Mangano and the Republican majority said the cameras were about increasing public safety by reducing the potential for accidents near schools. The plan’s detractors cried foul, saying they had nothing to do with safety, but were all about making millions of dollars to fill the county’s coffers.

First, what was wrong with the idea of balancing the county budget by penalizing 
drivers who whizzed through school zones? They broke the law. They must pay.

Nassau’s finances have long been a mess, largely because the county depends heavily on sales tax revenues to balance the budget. Sales taxes, though, are horribly unpredictable. One year the economy may be soaring, and they flow in like a raging river. The next, the economy might take a steep downturn, and bam! The torrent slows to a trickle.

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