Submitted by Karen Fassuliotis
On June 8th members of the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) will be deciding whether or not to endorse First Selectman Camillo and Police Chief Heavey’s traffic cameras. Their vote should be a resounding “no”.
The latest defense of Greenwich’s school-zone speed cameras has taken on the tone of a morality play: residents are reckless children who must be disciplined by their betters. The core message from Town Hall and its allies boils down to a condescending command: “Slow down.” As if the people of Greenwich had never encountered a brake pedal before Blue Line Solutions arrived from Tennessee with its revenue-sharing contract and automated ticketing machines.
Supporters of the cameras, including the Chief of Police, point to one undeniable fact: the program has reduced speeding violations. According to town data, violations reportedly dropped sharply after warnings and tickets were introduced, including a significant reduction in extreme speeding.
But acknowledging those results does not end the debate.
No one disputes the importance of child safety. Reasonable people across the political spectrum oppose speeding in school zones. But the rhetoric surrounding these cameras has obscured legitimate concerns about government overreach, privacy, due process, flawed road design, and the outsourcing of law enforcement to a private corporation whose profits depend on the number of tickets issued. Hopefully RTM members will understand these concerns when they debate and ultimately vote on the issue.
The May 14 “public hearing” held by the Board of Selectmen and Police Department made one thing clear, and which, unfortunately, appears to be echoed by certain RTM members supporting cameras – those who question automated enforcement are being portrayed as indifferent to children’s safety and supporting people breaking the law.
This is a false and unfair characterization.
Many residents raised thoughtful, substantive objections. Concerns about privacy — including whether license plate data could eventually be shared with insurers, federal agencies, or through public records requests — are not paranoid fantasies. They are prudent questions that deserved clear answers before the program was first implemented.
Others highlighted practical problems with the rollout itself: inconsistent camera placement, confusing speed signs, inadequate infrastructure improvements, and the absence of meaningful police presence.
These are not anti-safety arguments.
They are pro-accountability arguments.
At the heart of the skepticism lies the financial arrangement. When a private company profits directly from the volume of violations, public distrust is not cynicism — it is common sense. Residents are right to ask why enforcement revenue is being routed through an out-of-state contractor rather than remaining under full the transparency and control of our town.
The town maintains this is “not a money grab.” Yet even Chief Heavey acknowledges that expensive enforcement systems are rarely built out of pure altruism. The fact remains that if the cameras issued no tickets, the vendor would not remain in business. The incentives are obvious.
While supporters cite alarming national statistics on pedestrian fatalities, they rarely address the actual conditions in Greenwich — one of the safest communities in America. The town’s own crash data also raises important questions about whether Greenwich is truly facing the kind of crisis being used to justify traffic cameras. Over roughly a decade, the reported incidents across the school zones produced virtually no serious injuries and only a handful of pedestrian-related accidents, many involving no injury at all. While any accident is concerning, the data suggest Greenwich remains an overwhelmingly safe community rather than a town experiencing a widespread school-zone safety emergency. Even in the areas with higher accident totals, the statistics do not establish that speeding was the primary cause, as opposed to congestion, road design, confusing intersections, or distracted driving. Emotional appeals to worst-case scenarios that may or may not be applicable in Greenwich should not be used to justify permanent automated surveillance in our mostly quiet, low-risk neighborhoods.
Most concerning is the open admission that the cameras are intended for “behavior modification.” This is the language of social engineering, not traditional law enforcement, and should not be the goal of government. Citizens should be governed through human judgment and discretion, not trained like laboratory subjects under constant algorithmic surveillance.
Greenwich can enhance school zone safety without embracing automated surveillance as the new normal. More crossing guards, targeted police enforcement during peak hours, intelligent road redesign in areas where it makes sense and with neighborhood input, better traffic signal timing, and improved pedestrian infrastructure targeted where needed and agreed to by the community, would achieve better results while preserving public trust. These solutions treat residents as partners in civic life, not suspects in an enforcement dragnet.
The question is not whether speeding ever occurs. Of course it does.
The real question is whether Greenwich wants to be a community that normalizes a future in which every problem is met with more cameras, more contractors, more automated penalties, and more behavioral monitoring — all justified in the name of safety.
Greenwich now stands at a defining crossroad. Hopefully, the RTM will recognize the profound stakes involved and overwhelmingly reject these traffic cameras before it is too late. Our town representatives must refuse to trade Greenwich’s character and tradition of self-government for a surveillance state sold in the name of safety. The future of Greenwich should be shaped by its own citizens and accountable leaders — not by automated cameras and out-of-town contractors.