RICHMOND, Va. (WAVY) — Speed cameras in Virginia will stay where they are after a bill introduced in the House of Delegates failed to make out of committee.
House Bill 20 would have allowed cities and counties to put up speed cameras wherever they deemed necessary. However, the House of Delegates’ Transportation Committee opted by voice vote to defer the legislation to the General Assembly’s 2025 session.
Those are the same cameras that are only allowed to be in school zones, work zones, and construction areas.
Current attorney and former General Assembly member Tim Anderson called the move a money grab for localities.
He cited 10 On Your Side’s reporting on the more than $5.2 million Suffolk made from speed cameras from September to December 2023.
“It’s not fair to citizens,” Anderson said, “and it’s just a way for localities to make more revenue, and they were trying to expand that so they can go anywhere, right outside your neighborhood, anywhere they would want.”
The proposed legislation was first introduced Jan. 10 and nixed Feb. 6.
Anderson applauded lawmakers’ decision and said if this bill was approved, it could have been used for racial profiling.
“You can pick on people, you can harass people with these speed cameras,” Anderson said. “And they’re just revenue-based, and where localities are putting them, is they’re not putting them on a stretch of road that’s 45 miles per hour the whole way, they’re putting them in places where there’s rapid deceleration and speed sign changes and you miss it.”
But what about the work speed cameras could do to potentially help make dangerous roads safe again?
In 2023, there were numerous crashes along Independence Boulevard and Virginia Beach Boulevard.
In response, Anderson gave an alternative to the speed cameras.
“Put a police officer out there. There’s no better deterrent than a police officer in a car with lights on giving a ticket,” Anderson said.
Del. Karrie Delaney (D-Fairfax County) told 10 On Your Side why the bill was dropped.
“They’re a form of automated justice that has too much possibility without the proper guardrails to be predatory, to exploit people, to be placed in communities that are vulnerable and might be prone to exploitation,” she said.
Delaney also said the bill could very well be reintroduced next session.