What to know about the speed camera program for work zones in Connecticut

Connecticut launched its pilot Know the Zone campaign in April, monitoring all cars that drove through three large construction sites for speeding with automatic cameras. The program has since ended, but it may come back around.

“We want people who are out on the roadways to be aware and cognizant,” said Josh Morgan, a spokesman for Connecticut Department of Transportation which oversees the program.

Any driver going at least 15 miles over the speed limit in one of these areas and caught on camera was mailed a written warning followed by a ticket if they did it again. The first year yielded about 25,000 warnings out of the nearly 2.8 million vehicles tracked from April through December, officials said.

Here’s five things to know about the work zone camera program:

Tickets and the program’s cost

Tickets were issued based on how often the vehicle traveled at least 15 miles over the speed limit in one of the monitored work zones. The cameras took photos of the cars’ license plates to anyone going that fast.

State Police then issued a warning to whoever owns the car. About 25,000 of these were given out during its enforcement period. If that vehicle went over the limit like that again, the owner received a citation for $75, and then $150 for any subsequent infraction.

“There was no expectation to have this program pay for itself,” Morgan said, adding the hope would be for nobody to speed enough to get a citation.

The actual dollar amount received from the 724 tickets has not yet been calculated, he added, but it should be somewhere between $54,000 and $108,600.

The project cost the state about $4 million for advertisements, signs and other parts of the awareness campaign, Morgan said. He said he believes all of the money already went back to the state to cover some of that cost.

“There was no hope to generate revenue because that meant that people were still being reckless and speeding through the work zone,” he said.

After the citation

In terms of the actual citations, it is similar to a parking ticket, where it is a fine that doesn’t impact insurance, add points to a license nor stay on a record, Morgan said.

They also decided that the citation would go to the person who owned the car, not the one driving it, since the photos would be of the license plates and it would be difficult to determine who the driver was, he said.

“It was deliberate to have it be that way,” Morgan said.

In Connecticut, the Centralized Infractions Bureau checks the data they receive from the automatic cameras before sending out citations. People can contest the warnings and tickets they receive with that bureau.

Morgan said the data proves the cameras made work zones safer, though, considering more than 25,000 people received warnings, while only 700 actually had citations against them.

Camera locations

The cameras’ three main locations were the Norwalk/Westport line and in East Lyme on Interstate 95, as well as Interstate

84 in Waterbury.

DOT provided information and maps online about the campaign to ensure drivers knew about the construction, Morgan said. They even made sure GPS apps would notify drivers about the construction zones.

To ensure drivers knew about the program, signs were posted along the highways as drivers approached the zones and the state bought radio and social media advertisements.

Morgan called it a “fully transparent program in the name of safety.”

DOT focused on those three locations because they were long-term projects and noted as areas where speeding was a problem, Morgan said.

The cameras could also be moved to smaller projects when not in use at one of the three main ones, but those locations have not been released yet.

How it came about and where it’s going

The program’s goal was to make construction zones safer for both drivers and workers, and make drivers aware of their speeding habits, not generate a profit, Morgan said.

Morgan said legislation for automated traffic enforcement has been floating around for decades, and has been proposed as a solution to try and improve roadway safety.

In the 2021 legislative session though, a bill allowing for three work zone speed cameras was passed for calendar year 2023.

Morgan said throughout that session, DOT worked with multiple groups on the pilot program, including legislators, the ACLU and privacy advocates about what information would be collected and released.