Don’t even think of speeding in Manhattan Beach.

With New York’s expanded school speed zone camera program taking effect July 11th , Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz (D-Brooklyn) has successfully appealed to the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) to bring a second mobile speed camera to Manhattan Beach, where speeding near several schools has posed a persistent danger.

As per the expanded speed camera law, which Assemblyman Cymbrowitz multi- sponsored in the Assembly, the new camera will operate year-round on weekdays between
6 a.m. and 10 p.m., including summer and school vacations. Previously, the cameras could only operate during a given school’s active hours.

Three years ago, at the community’s request, Assemblyman Cymbrowitz helped Manhattan Beach secure a mobile speed camera, which was successful in slowing down
area drivers. DOT subsequently installed a permanent camera on Shore Boulevard. “Unfortunately, this season has brought a lot of speeding cars and reports of drag racing in the area,” Assemblyman Cymbrowitz said. “While NYPD added more units, marked and unmarked, to ticket speeding drivers, I believe that having additional cameras is important because such sustained enforcement isn’t possible.”

Even with the ticketing blitz, the speeding issue has persisted, the lawmaker said.

“Manhattan Beach is one of the few local thoroughfares in the city that has almost half-mile stretches of roadway uncontrolled by any traffic device and is also within a short distance of an elementary school (P.S.195), a college (Kingsborough) and high school (Leon Goldstein), in addition to a number of summer camps and preschools,” Assemblyman Cymbrowitz said. “For thousands of children and adults each day, the danger is real.”

When fully implemented, the new speed camera law will expand the maximum number of school speed zones from 140 to 750 and will cover a quarter-mile radius from every school. Since the program’s launch in 2014, speeding at locations with cameras has decreased by more than 60 percent.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)