Last week the Montgomery County, Maryland Council wanted to promote a plan to blitz the area with yet more speed cameras. For best effect, council members invited their top salesman, John Damskey, Director of the Montgomery County Police Department Traffic Division. The council made the right choice. The articulate Damskey has a look in his eyes that just says he wants to be the next police chief. The only way that will ever happen is to deliver exactly what the council wants, regardless of the truth.

“In December of 2008 we were asked to provide some statistics to show the benefit of the program,” Damskey said.

So he created some: First, a 22% reduction in speed at camera sites. This reflects the obvious phenomenon of people slamming on their brakes when approaching a  camera zone. This frequently creates a backup where speeds are 10 MPH or more under the limit. But Damskey’s crown jewel was this amazing figure: a 53% reduction in fatalities in Montgomery County thanks solely to the speed cameras.

An impressive figure, until Councilman George Leventhal accidentally rained on Damskey’s parade.

“Captain Damskey, the statistic that you cited of a 50% reduction in fatalities certainly got my attention,” he gushed. “Is that in a one year period, or two years since the introduction of the program?”

George had all the right intentions. He obviously realized that the bare minimum for a statistical relevance would be one year of data. Since fatal accidents are the most rare, you really would want at least two years of numbers upon which to base any conclusion.

It turns out that Damskey was comparing the first few months of 2009 to the same period in 2008. In other words, he wasn’t doing an honest before/after comparison, he cherry picked six months worth of data with cameras in use to compare with another six month of “after” data. It was an after/after comparison where the numbers happened to look good.

It turns out that statistical time periods are the Achilles heel of Maryland photo radar presentations. In a must-read 2002 Weekly Standard article, investigative reporter Matt Labash came up with a similar question for Damskey’s colleagues in Howard County.

At a congressional hearing last summer, they were automated enforcement’s star witnesses. Wearing their gold-braided dress blues and wielding their Power Point displays, they proceeded to declare their three-year-old red-light camera program an unqualified success, boasting a reduction in collisions of between 18 percent and 44 percent at every intersection where a camera had been installed.

The statistics were impressive. Still, confused as to the time periods being monitored, I called Lt. Glenn Hansen to ask for clarification. “You’re right, it’s confusing,” said the media-friendly Hansen, who runs their program. “You’re a writer, maybe you can give us advice on how to do better in the future.” It turns out Hansen had no idea what the time periods were either, except that the times measured before and after installation of the camera were equal. But when I obtained accident statistics for all the county-road intersections where cameras had been placed, the numbers didn’t square with the ones presented at the congressional hearing.

Labash did a real before/after comparison and found that total accidents actually increased 16%. But let’s move along from that. Damskey has more to say, and you need to know Maryland law to understand the full impact of what he was trying to do. MGA Statutes §21–809(j) states:

If a contractor operates a speed monitoring system on behalf of Montgomery County, the contractor’s fee may not be contingent on the number of citations issued or paid.

Montgomery County does pay ACS a contingent fee of $16.25 for each citation issued. Damskey explained all the things that ACS does in return for all of that money:

• ACS owns the cameras
• ACS does all maintenance and repair
• ACS does site management
• ACS does IT services
• ACS does name and address acquisition
• ACS does initial review and all data entry
• ACS does payment processing
• ACS does customer service
• ACS does printing and mailing services
• ACS does site construction
• ACS does back office processing

What does Montgomery County do? It “manages” the program, which means in Damskey’s view that the county isn’t violating the law because managing is operating.

So the next time you’re pulled over for speeding in Montgomery County, be sure to tell the officer that you did not break state law because you were not operating the vehicle by Captain Damskey’s definition. In fact, the real operator was the friend in the back seat yelling that you needed to hurry up or you’d be late.

So how did the council rate Damskey’s performance?

“It was exactly what I was looking for,” Council Vice President Roger Berliner said.

Congratulations, you’re well on your way to becoming chief one day, Captain Damskey.

Watch Damskey’s show.

What’s it going to be then?

Last week’s Motorcycle News (Wednesday 10 June ‘09) featured a couple of news items and articles which really intrigued me.  The first highlighted how the new motorcycle test is hurting the industry; the other expressed the frustrations of the police at the casualty rate on the infamous Cat and Fiddle  pass.

So far, the new test has received unbelievable criticism for being supposedly too hard and too dangerous.  This has resulted in a drop in the number of people entering into motorcycling.  Granted, this will have a huge knock-on effect for the industry and revenue will drop in all sectors, from new bike and gear sales to track days, insurance and more.  A point which is raised time and time again is the falling business for training schools.

In the meantime, the A537 is being turned into an average speed camera zone.  Speed cameras are a known controversy, and everyone is well aware of the concept of their employment, and the ulterior motives at work between the lines.  You’d think the Cat and Fiddle would be one of the first places to feature them, but no.  The Police have resisted pressure to have them installed for as long as possible, trying every other method available to reduce the casualty rate.

But awareness just doesn’t seem to reach the tiny minority of riders who kill themselves on the road every year.  The police even know that while installing the cameras will keep speeds down, the majority of accidents occur on bends due to rider error: error that would be preventable with… more training and higher awareness.

So a combined lack of skill and responsibility is causing damage to riders.  Every time this makes the papers (not just the A537, but all over the country) the reputation of the biking community is hurt, and that damages the industry.

This isn’t anything new: it’s what brought about a harder test, a test that brings us more in line with the rest of Europe.  The swerve test that many complain is too hard and too dangerous is, in my view, a manouevre entirely to be expected on the roads of Britain.  If you can’t do it in controlled conditions, then damn right you shouldn’t be on the roads.

But the attitude that says, in a sulky voice, “it’s not fair” is typical of people who don’t take responsibility for their own safety, or (more grandly) for the reputation of biking.  Indeed, at the outside, you could say that the training schools complaining of the lack of business should be chastised for failing their main duty: to encourage people to be as safe as possible.

But is that their main duty?  Motorcycling has to decide whether its primary concern is safety on the road, or money in the bank.

From the West Side Leader: 

$10,000 from speed camera fines used for child safety, assisting law enforcement

DOWNTOWN AKRON — Proceeds from civil penalties charged for speeding in school zones will now go even further toward protecting children. Akron City Council unanimously approved a $10,000 payment to Grandparents Against Sex Predators (GASP) June 8.

Fran Doll, of Fairlawn, who organized GASP in 2006, said it was the largest single check the nonprofit organization has ever received.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Click to enlarge the "evidence" provided by ATS

Last month, the reckless mayor of the District of Columbia hurtled down East Capitol Street in North East Washington at the breakneck speed of 43 MPH — a full 13 miles per hour in excess of the speed limit. Fortunately, scofflaw Adrian M. Fenty’s vehicular rampage was stopped dead in its tracks two weeks and four days later when a ticket was finally dropped in the U.S. mail.

American Traffic Systems (ATS) had issued the demand for the immediate payment of $50 to the “DC DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS,” the registered owner of the tiny taxpayer-funded Smart car. As one can see from the photographs taken by the ATS machine, Mayor Fenty was driving without due care and attention by straddling a second lane without any apparent use of a turn signal — just the sort of thing for which ATS plans to begin issuing tickets as part of the public-private partnership to boost revenue with “secondary violations.”

Now, we don’t actually think Fenty’s driving in this case endangered anyone. Driving 43 MPH on a six-lane boulevard on a clear day in light traffic is what the safe and reasonable majority of drivers do. By underposting speed limits and criminalizing ordinary conduct, the District has been able to profit from more than 3,732,234 photo tickets issued since 1999 worth about $280 million. The difference in this particular case is that Fenty is a hypocrite. The photographic money machine can only keep flashing if mayors like Fenty demonize motorists who are not endangering anyone. The other difference is that when we do that, we get the ticket and we have to pay it.

Attention Maryland High School Students: This is the mayor's plate

In Fenty’s case, the cost of the car, the gas, and the tickets are all paid by the taxpayer. In fact, you would never have known about this incident had the Washington City Paper not known that the mayor and his personal assistant frequently drive the black and gray Smart car with license plate CV-6154. Reporter Mike DeBonis ran that plate through the online database and caught the May 11 incident before it was erased from the system.

Now that Fenty has been caught, a city spokesman told the City Paper, “He’ll pay the ticket.”

What do you want to bet that would be the first time he’s ever paid with his own money? Next time, he’ll probably just take the motorcade.