Fairfield's Speed Cameras: 56 Crashes, 114,000 Speeders, and a Whole Lot of Bad Excuses

To the Editor:

Over the past few weeks, Fairfield residents have raised a number of concerns about the town's new school zone speed camera program. Some of those concerns deserve a straight answer. Others deserve a reality check.

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Let's start with the numbers. In three weeks, cameras issued over 114,000 warnings to drivers exceeding the posted speed limit in designated school zones. That number has been cited as evidence of government overreach. It is actually evidence of something far more troubling: Fairfield has a serious speeding problem concentrated in the areas where our children are most vulnerable. In 2024, Fairfield ranked third in the state for traffic violations issued. These cameras did not create that problem. They revealed it.

The data supporting each camera location was not invented by the Vitale administration. The Fairfield Police Department conducted traffic studies and compiled a 209 page municipal plan submitted to the state for approval. That plan documents the crash history at every single camera site for the three year period from January 2021 to December 2023, before a single camera existed. The results are not abstract. Burr Street recorded 2 crashes and 1 injury. Redding Road recorded 2 crashes, 1 injury, and 2 documented fatal pedestrian crashes. Mill Plain Road recorded 2 crashes and 1 injury. Knapps Highway recorded 11 crashes and 2 injuries. Unquowa Road recorded 10 crashes and 3 injuries. Jefferson Street recorded 23 crashes and 3 injuries, including a major collision where a speeding driver struck another vehicle head-on and injured 5 people. Melville Avenue recorded 6 crashes. That is 56 documented crashes across these corridors in three years. These are not hypothetical dangers. They are documented ones.

The program itself was not cooked up overnight by one administration. The Connecticut General Assembly authorized speed cameras in school zones in 2023. The Fairfield Police Department conducted traffic studies. The Board of Police Commissioners, led by Republican chairman Jamie Millington, reviewed those studies and approved the school zones unanimously. The Representative Town Meeting adopted the ordinance in February 2025. This is what transparent, accountable local government looks like.

Several complaints have circulated that deserve direct responses. I want to be clear that I have no inside knowledge and no affiliation with town government. I am simply someone who read the publicly available documents. The 209 page municipal plan, the commission minutes, the ordinance, and the meeting records are all public. Anyone can read them. I did.

This is not a tax. A tax is levied on everyone regardless of behavior. This is a fine issued exclusively to drivers who chose to exceed the posted speed limit in a marked school zone by ten miles per hour or more. The fine is $50 for a first offense. The path to paying nothing is straightforward: drive at or below the posted limit. Every dollar collected comes directly from a decision a driver made.

The 24/7 enforcement complaint reflects either a misunderstanding of how the system works or a deliberate misrepresentation of it. The cameras do not enforce a school hours speed limit around the clock. Each site operates on a two tier system. During school arrival and dismissal windows the limit drops to 20 mph. Outside those windows the cameras enforce the standard posted speed limit that has always been on those roads. Burr Street and Redding Road are posted at 25 mph. Mill Plain Road is posted at 30 mph. A camera enforcing 25 mph at midnight is doing exactly what a police officer would do, just more efficiently without compromising the patrols already set.

Some argue that a police officer should simply be stationed at each location. But a police officer can only pull over one vehicle at a time, police shifts are budgeted, and staffing a camera at six locations around the clock would require either significant overtime costs or pulling officers from existing patrols and creating gaps in coverage elsewhere. The camera does not get tired, does not need backup, and does not leave a neighborhood unprotected to write a ticket on the other side of town.

The "Big Brother" framing is deliberately inflammatory. These are fixed cameras in posted locations that capture license plates when a speed threshold is exceeded. They do not track your movements or build a profile. Personally identifiable information is required by ordinance to be destroyed within 30 days of fine collection or hearing resolution. Calling this a surveillance state is designed to frighten people, not inform them.

The concern about drivers speeding up once they clear the zone is a legitimate behavioral observation and worth addressing through extended enforcement areas or additional camera placement. That is a productive conversation to have with the Police Commission.

The comparison to Flock cameras is worth clarifying. Flock cameras are license plate readers used for criminal investigation. They are a separate system with a separate purpose. Conflating the two muddies a conversation that deserves clarity.

To those asking why more was not done for pedestrian infrastructure before the cameras went up, that question deserves an honest answer rather than dismissal. The municipal plan itself acknowledges pedestrian infrastructure gaps at several of these corridors. Redding Road, where two fatal pedestrian crashes occurred, had a formal Road Safety Assessment commissioned specifically for that stretch. The town has also secured a $350,000 federal Safe Streets For All grant and developed a Complete Streets Right of Way Manual, both of which are active efforts to address pedestrian safety infrastructure across Fairfield. These are not excuses. They are evidence that the town is aware of the gaps and working to close them. The difference is that a capital infrastructure project requires engineering, permitting, funding cycles, and years of lead time. A speed camera can be operational in weeks. Children are using these corridors now. Waiting for a sidewalk project to wind through the approval process before doing anything was not an acceptable answer.

Concerns about alternative traffic calming measures are fair to raise, and the town has pursued them. Bump outs installed on Villa Avenue are among the most effective tools available for slowing traffic without impeding emergency vehicles or interfering with snow removal. They are also among the most complained about. Fairfield residents have a pattern of demanding safer streets and then opposing every physical measure taken to create them. The pattern is clear: they want the safety and charm of a small town with none of the personal accountability that comes with it. At some point the question has to be asked: what solution would actually be acceptable, and is the real objection to the measure or to the inconvenience of slowing down?

On the subject of police conduct, the exemptions in the ATESD ordinance for emergency vehicles are narrow and specific. Non-emergency speeding is not exempt. Concerns about officer behavior should be brought directly to Chief Paris or the Police Commission with specifics. That accountability mechanism exists for a reason.

The same community raising these objections has spent considerable energy on social media complaining about children on e-bikes running stop signs and ignoring traffic laws. That is a fair concern. But children learn by example. The habits they develop on bikes mirror the habits they observe from the adults in their lives behind the wheel. If we want children to respect traffic laws, the most direct path is for adults to model that behavior first.

Here is what this entire debate keeps dancing around. The physics of vehicle collisions are not a political opinion. A child struck at 20 mph has a strong chance of surviving. At 30 mph that probability drops sharply. At 40 mph it becomes a question of funeral arrangements. The speed limit in these zones is not bureaucratic inconvenience. It is the line between a child going home and a child not going home.

56 crashes at these six locations in three years. 114,000 warnings in three weeks. Those numbers tell the same story. The cameras are not the problem. The driving that made them necessary is.

I encourage anyone who wants to form an informed opinion to read the source documents themselves rather than rely on Facebook posts:

The full 209 page Fairfield ATESD Municipal Plan, reviewed and approved by the Connecticut DOT, is available here: https://portal.ct.gov/dot/-/media/dot/programs/automated-traffic-enforcement/approved-plans/fairfield-ct-atesd-planpermit-121125.pdf

The February 12, 2025 Police Commission meeting minutes showing the unanimous approval vote are available here: https://cms3.revize.com/revize/fairfield/Document%20Center/Agendas%20&%20Minutes/Police%20Commissions/2025/Minutes/Minutes%2002-12-2025%20Final.pdf

Read them. Then decide.

Patrick Smith Fairfield, CT