By CLAUDIA STUART AND SHARON O’MALLEY
PHOTO CREDIT Claudia Stuart
Members of the College Park City Council in October expressed their support for placing stop sign cameras around the city but stopped short of voting to install the technology.
The discussion followed a three-week pilot program, during which nine stop signs were equipped with solar-powered cameras to collect data about how many drivers neglected to stop at the signs.
The AI-generated results showed that up to 92%–and no fewer than 61%–of drivers did not come to a full stop across the nine locations, a finding that Mayor Fazlul Kabir called “very scary.”
At the Oct. 8 council meeting, Dhruv Maheshwari, co-founder of Obvio, the Silicon Valley firm that installed the cameras, showed videos of cars speeding through stop signs without stopping, sometimes when pedestrians were attempting to cross the street. In one video, a driver ran through a sign without stopping to pass another car that was already in the intersection.
Still, the lawmakers decided to reach out to the community and to the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee for input before voting.
“I just wanted to make sure there was an opportunity for public comment and really frame this in a clear and public way,” Councilmember Susan Whitney (District 2) said at the meeting.
Meanwhile, the Prince George’s County Council is considering legislation that would allow the county to install stop sign cameras on state and local highways in school zones.
State legislation adopted earlier this year authorized Prince George’s County and cities in the county to use photo enforcement to monitor traffic violations, including running stop signs and making illegal left turns, for example. Drivers will receive fines of $40 per offense, the same as for speed-camera violations.
The city will collect approximately 50% of the revenue after Obvio, if it is the vendor the council selects for permanent stop sign monitoring, takes its share for administering the program.
Law enforcement officials will review the videos to determine which violations will result in citations. During the three-week pilot, no tickets were issued.
The state law requires cities that earn revenue from stop sign monitoring to spend it on traffic safety efforts.
Several council members pointed out during the meeting that the program’s goal is safety, not profit.
“Our motivation is safety,” Maria Mackie (District 4), said. “The city’s not making big money on this.”
Mackie and others said residents have raised concerns about whether the program is about generating revenue rather than about driver and pedestrian safety.
Mayor Pro Tem Denise Mitchell (District 4) said residents of her district are generally not in favor of the cameras, and noted the same concerns arose when the city installed its first traffic cameras years ago.
Mitchell and others called for an education campaign for residents before the stop sign monitors are installed.
Maheshwari said education will help build community buy-in for the program and trust in the city’s motivation for it.
In addition, once the program is phased in and drivers start to get tickets, violations might decrease, Delegate Anne Healey, District 22, who introduced the state law, told College Park Here & Now.
“I expect … they will change their behavior and actually stop at the signs where the cameras are,” Healey said.
An Obvio study showed that in cities that placed digital boards near the stop signs to immediately notify drivers of their violations, offenders changed their driving habits.
Maheshwari said those cities saw a 70% decrease in the most severe violations in the first couple of months of their programs.
A handful of Prince George’s County cities, including Cottage City, Bowie and Greenbelt, among others, also are testing stop sign cameras.
