Dive Brief:
- Los Angeles has tapped Verra Mobility to design, build, operate and maintain speed safety systems at 125 locations in the city, creating the largest speed camera program in the state, the company announced Monday.
- From 2017 to 2021, 16% of all fatal and severe crashes in Los Angeles were due to unsafe speed, according to a January 2026 LA Department of Transportation report. Speeding was responsible for 4% of pedestrian fatalities and 21% of bicyclist deaths, the report states.
- A 2023 state law authorized Los Angeles, as well as San Jose, Oakland, Glendale, Long Beach, and the city and county of San Francisco, to deploy automated speed safety cameras under a pilot program.
Dive Insight:
Speed safety cameras have been proven to reduce speeds and collisions. At 15 sites in San Francisco, speeding declined by an average of 72% within the first six months after safety cameras were installed, the Municipal Transportation Agency found. In Philadelphia, cameras cut speeding violations by 95% on a major corridor since 2020. Verra Mobility provided both those installations.
“These programs are highly effective at reducing dangerous driving,” Verra Mobility Vice President Will Barnow said in a statement.
LA’s speed safety camera locations were chosen using traffic safety data, including information on speeding behavior and crash history, according to Verra Mobility. At many of these sites, multiple cameras will be installed to help reduce speeding in both directions and encourage safer driving habits throughout the community, the company said in a news release.
To ensure privacy and security, the cameras record only still images and license plate information and do not perform facial recognition. Confidential data will not be shared with local, state or federal law enforcement unless compelled by a court order, Verra Mobility said.
Nationally, speeding accounted for 29% of total traffic fatalities in 2024, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, resulting in 11,288 deaths.
In December, the U.S. Department of Transportation said it would no longer approve grants for traffic safety cameras under the Safe Streets and Roads for All program, except in school or work zones, calling them “unfair revenue schemes.”
