by Judy Frank
posted November 9, 2009
Signal Mountain Town Council members - who had already agreed during their agenda session to use traditional law enforcement measures rather than the cameras to combat speeding – voted unanimously again Monday evening to reject the proposal.
The decision was well received. Town council members received a round of applause after they took their formal vote.
The recommendation that cameras be used came earlier this fall from Police Chief Boyd Veal in response to a traffic study that showed more than 90 percent of observed drivers were speeding as they drove along Signal Mountain streets.
But the idea was controversial from day one.
"If 95 percent of the town is speeding, then the speed limits are too low," Noah Long, a frequent critic of council actions, argued at the time. "Studies show that most people drive at speeds consistent with road conditions . . . Now there are always fools. There are always kids . . . But I'm absolutely, totally against cameras."
Monday evening, opponent after opponent took the podium to plead that the town not adopt cameras as other communities, including Red Bank and Chattanooga, have done.
One woman said she believes the cameras would make driving less safe, not more so.
“If I’m coming up to an intersection and I’m trying to watch the drivers in front of me and the drivers behind me and everything else, then adding traffic cameras is just one more thing to distract me from what I’m doing,” she said.
Town council members also agreed unanimously not to raise the town’s sales tax, which had been under consideration as a way of increasing revenues.
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