Today’s big local news is that—surprise!—D.C. traffic cameras bring in money. But more than that, some speed cameras really rake in the revenue, led by cameras on the north and southbound stretches of 295 in Southeast D.C. and a westbound segment of New York Avenue between Ninth Street NE and Florida Avenue.

The tally of the speed camera tickets and how much they netted the city was put out in a report by AAA—read: the car lobby—which has shown little sympathy over the years for the use of speed cameras throughout the city. When standing alone, it might seem impressive—and outrageous!—that two speed cameras on 295 accounted for 161,399 tickets and $15.8 million in revenue in fiscal 2012. (All of the cameras brought in around $85 million in that period.)

Those numbers just make it seem like D.C. is sucking the money out of people’s pockets, right? Well, sure—but they lack some valuable context, namely traffic volume.

That stretch of 295, for one, is used for 71,200 trips a day, according to 2010 data from the D.C. Department of Transportation. Let’s split that evenly and say that 35,000 trips go northbound, and 35,000 head southbound on a daily basis. According to the numbers provided by AAA, 92,441 speeding tickets were handed out in fiscal 2012 to cars heading south, and 68,958 to those headed north. Once you start dividing up that number of tickets by the number of trips, well, it becomes a little less impressive—and yes, a little less outrageous.

Same things goes for New York Avenue, which in fiscal 2012 saw 56,493 speeding tickets handed out to motorists. According to DDOT, the roadway was used for 57,000 daily trips in both directions, so split the difference to determine the number of daily westbound trips and suddenly those 56,493 annual tickets aren’t so anger-inducing.

This is generally the problem with the debate over traffic cameras in D.C.: we’re only ever getting half the story. AAA wants to make this about fines and revenue, effectively making it seems that D.C. is shamelessly sucking hard-earned cash out of your wallet. It also tries to make it seem that everyone is up in arms about these cameras, when 75 percent of tickets go to out-of-staters and most city officials will admit that they get as many requests for the cameras as they do complaints against them. (Interestingly, AAA doesn’t raise any issues with the city’s red light cameras.)

None of this is to say that D.C. is fully in the right, though. City officials haven’t done a very good job changing the narrative, and instead have made traffic camera revenue a consistent means to close annual budget gaps. Additionally, there’s a feeling that some speed limits are set artificially low for the express purpose of catching people in speed traps. Porter Street NW was a good example—the camera was recently removed—as is 295.

Legislation recently proposed by Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) and Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) seeks to change this by lowering speeding fines to $50, making the process of assigning speed limits more transparent and dedicated 50 percent of traffic camera revenue to safety programs. The legislation would also mandate more obvious signage and a 30-day grace period for every new camera.

Of course, both Mayor Vince Gray and some of their colleagues have raised one concern: closing the gap between what the cameras take in now and what they would take in under a new schedule of fines. That’s certainly something Wells and Cheh will have to tackle, but it shouldn’t sink their attempt.

The challenge for the council will be to wade through the many issues related to the cameras without getting bogged down in the “war on motorists” meme that AAA aggressively pushes in the media. At the end of the day, just saying that the cameras bring in so many millions of dollars a year shouldn’t be the point around which the debate revolves. It’s a dangerous argument for AAA to make, anyhow—we could just as well say that those millions are coming from drivers that refuse to slow down, right?