If a freshman member of the House of Representatives has his way, the District government’s coffers would be a lot lighter. Perhaps $95 million lighter, to be exact.
That’s how much money D.C.’s network of speed and red-light camera’s generated in 2012, but Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-Mich.) is circulating a bill that would prevent the city from using “an automated traffic enforcement system to detect a moving infraction in the District of Columbia.” Bentilovo’s bill hasn’t been introduced yet, but the text of the legislation suggests it is for the sake of “safer streets.”
Bentilovio’s spokesman Matt Chisholm says the bill is still being tinkered with. But as it stands, Bentilovio only appears to be trying to make the streets “safer” in D.C. and not any of the other 520 jurisdictions that use red light cameras and 128 jurisdictions that use speed cameras, according to the latest figures from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Traffic cameras might be foreign objects in Bentilovio’s hometown of Commerce, Mich.—in fact, they’re nowhere to be found throughout Michigan—but they’re old hat in D.C. Though the grousing about automatically generated speeding tickets has increased in recent years, the District has been seeing results, monetary and otherwise, from traffic cameras for more than a decade.
“I’ll point out that automated traffic enforcement has helped the District lower the number of traffic fatalities by 73 percent since 2001,” Pedro Ribeiro, a spokesman for Mayor Vince Gray, says. “Our systems work, and has made our streets safer for motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists alike.”
And Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton wants to know why Bentilovio is meddling in local D.C. affairs without targeting any of the other cities that use traffic cameras. “If Representative Bentivolio believes that automated traffic enforcement systems, which are used throughout the country, are bad public policy, why didn’t he draft a bill that applies nationwide?” Norton asks in a statement. “He is singling out the District because he thinks he can.”
But Chisholm says his boss is making a stand for freedom. “Congressman Bentivolio was sent to Washington to protect the people’s rights, not take them away,” he tells DCist. “The final version of this bill will do just that.”
When not taking it upon himself to protect the rights of a district he does not represent, Bentivolio moonlights as a Santa Claus impersonator. (He actually owns six reindeer!) And earlier this month on the House floor, he bungled passing the microphone to Del. Eni Faleomavaega when he flubbed the pronunciation of his non-voting colleague’s name. He also said Faleomavega represents “American Somolia.”
No such place exists. Faleomavaega represents American Samoa, the U.S. island territory in the South Pacific Ocean.
In the mean time, here’s the draft of Bentivolio’s bill:
