STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- More than 100,000 motorists have been caught speeding through highway work zones by New York’s newest form of automated enforcement.
In September 2021, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill to establish a pilot program for highway work zone speed cameras in an effort to cut down on the number of injuries and deaths caused by speeding motorists.
The new program was launched on Monday, Apr. 17, at the start of National Work Zone Awareness Week, but the cameras only issued warnings during their first 30 days of operation, with ticketing starting on May 17.
On Thursday, Hochul announced that the cameras have issued 133,640 tickets through Nov. 22, with 95,861 issued in work zones controlled by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) and 37,779 issued in work zones along the New York Thruway.
“New York has zero tolerance for negligent or aggressive behavior that endangers our men and women in labor who work hard every day to keep us moving,” Hochul said. “Work zone speed limits and other restrictions protect highway workers making our roads safer for everyone, and the actions we have taken this year are proving to be effective.”
On the New York Thruway, less than 2% of the roughly 2.3 million vehicles that passed an automated work zone camera were issued tickets, with roughly 4% of all tickets issued to repeat offenders.
In work zones controlled by NYSDOT, as was the case on the Thruway, less than 2% of the roughly 4.9 million vehicles that passed an automated work zone camera were issued tickets. However, in these work zones roughly 9% of all tickets were issued to repeat offenders.
The governor’s office provided a region-by-region breakdown of where the tickets were issued, with the vast majority occurring on Long Island, in the Rochester/Finger Lakes region or along the New York Thruway.
Here’s a look at how many tickets were issued in each region.
- Long Island – 41,709
- Rochester/Finger Lakes – 32,578
- New York City – 12,330
- Albany/Capital Region – 4,616
- Binghamton/Southern Tier – 1,200
- Syracuse/Central New York – 1,140
- Poughkeepsie/Hudson Valley – 1,016
- Buffalo/Western New York - 849
- Hornell/Western Southern Tier - 211
- Watertown/North Country - 113
- Utica/Mohawk Valley - 99
- Thruway - 37,779
The cameras use radar technology to detect, photograph and ticket vehicles traveling more than 10 miles per hour over the posted speed limit in highway work zones.
There are a total of 30 mobile camera units, which are regularly moved to various active highway work zones throughout the state, meaning the cameras may be in one place one week and another place the next.
However, residents can visit the program’s website and scroll down to the “Locations” tab to see where the cameras were most recently placed.
“NYSDOT [New York State Department of Transportation] may deploy the Automated Work Zone Speed Monitoring mobile units at the following list of scheduled work zones on eligible roadways. This list is not comprehensive of all work on eligible [New York state] highways. Locations and the durations of the mobile units each day will change based on work schedules, weather and priorities. Final positioning of the units will be determined the morning of each deployment,” according to the website.
The tickets feature an escalating fine structure, with fines starting at $50 for a driver’s first violation, increasing to $75 for the second violation and to $100 for the third and all subsequent violations within 18 months of the first violation.
As required by state law, 60% of the fine revenue generated by the speed cameras will be allocated to work zone safety improvement projects.
The pilot program is slated to run for five years, at which point legislators will review the cameras efficacy in reducing speeding, crashes, injuries and deaths before deciding whether to make the program permanent.
From 2010 through 2016, there were 3,450 accidents in highway work zones in New York, resulting in 50 deaths and over 1,100 injuries to workers and drivers, according to state data.
The legislation that enabled the program referenced other states that have used speed cameras to cut down on work zone speeding, like Maryland, which installed the cameras in 2010 and has seen the following: work zone speeds drop by 10%; the likelihood of someone exceeding the speed limit by 10 miles per hour drop by 59%, the number of deaths from work zone crashes drop by 45%.