Citing “improvement of Interstate Highway safety conditions,” the Maine Department of Transportation announced an investment of $970,000 in a new batch of traffic cameras on Interstate 295 and Interstate 95.

They won’t be used to issue speeding tickets; automatic enforcement was ruled out by statute in 2009. Now seems like a fine time for Maine to solemnly revisit this approach.

By Halloween, new cameras will be in place on I-295 near Exit 10 in Falmouth, Exit 15 in Yarmouth and Exit 20 in Freeport. On I-95, they will be installed by Exits 109 and 112 in Augusta, Exit 120 in Sidney, Exits 127 and 130 in Waterville and Exit 133 in Fairfield.

The initial DOT announcement generated considerable buzz. Or was it consternation? What exactly does a “traffic camera” do? The next day, a reporter cleared it up for us: The cameras will be used to track delays and aid in emergency response. 

Speeders of Maine, exhale!

On the very same day, we published another report: “Maine traffic deaths are rising faster than the rest of the nation, new study says.” 

Interviewed about the report’s findings, Bob Skehan, the director of the department’s office of safety and mobility, pointed out that the increase was charted against an unusual dip in road fatalities in 2014. 

Even then, he acknowledged the lengths his office is having to go to to curb the trend of reckless and dangerous driving. “We’re doing a whole suite of things,” he said, “a toolbox, if you will — based on this situation we find ourselves in.”

Members of this editorial board (once they were finished making jokes and half-jokes about the fines they might personally fall foul of under a new regime) agreed there’s a tool that urgently needs to be evaluated for inclusion in this box: enforcement by speed camera. 

According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, 19 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws that permit the use of speed cameras (22 plus D.C. permit “red light” camera use). There’s no reason, we feel, for Maine not to join this group.

We do not have to make our roads unrecognizable overnight. With that in mind, there’s a glimmer of hope, perhaps, in the form of the legislative bill proposing a trial of cameras and sensors to automatically ticket Maine speeders where roadwork is being carried out. The proposal, not voted on last session, carries over to the next.

Editorializing in support of the bill back in April, we wrote: “The narrow scope of this impressive proposal — applying only to construction zones and asking only for a pilot program of limited duration — indicates that the legislators behind it understand the pitifully steep hill LD 1457 faces.”

Fearful of “excessive surveillance and control over the daily lives of Maine citizens,” as one of the bill’s opponents declared himself earlier this year? Welcome to 2025. In order to reduce bloodshed on our roads, we have to start somewhere.