Assemblywoman Deborah Glick (D-Manhatten) and Senator Andrew Lanza (R-Staten Island) are co-sponsoring a bill that calls for the installation of between 20 and 40 speed enforcement cameras that would ticket speeding motorists.
There is also a bill sponsored by Joseph Lentol (D-Brooklyn) that is calling for speed cameras on McGuinness Boulevard, a busy roadway in North Brooklyn that is notorious for high accident statistics.
Under Lanza's proposal, motorists would be ticketed $50 for driving 5 to 10 over the city's 30 mph speed limit, $75 for 10 to 30 over and $150 for more than 30 over. However, motorists would not receive points on his or her license.
Lentol said the driver's would not receive points due to the "constitutional issues" of being cited by a camera, which cannot exercise the judgment of a police officer.
Critics say the cameras are only used to help generate revenue for local government, and that the indescretionary nature of technology make the cameras unfair.
"New York City's program not involving any points ... it doesn't look like they're out to get bad drivers off the road but just make money off of people who happen to be speeding," AAA spokesman Robert Sinclair Jr. told CBS New York.
Sinclair also said that in certain situations, such as passing a car or getting away from a dangerous motorist, the driver must speed. Speed cameras would not have the discretion to determine whether the speeding was necessary or not, Sinclair said.
Meanwhile, some New York City residents applaud use of the cameras, saying they are needed to control traffic along busy and dangerous roads.
"The traffic (on McGuinnes Boulevard in Brooklyn) is horrible," Marrie Carrion, an employee of McGuinness Truck & Auto Parts, told the Greenpoint Star. "I hope they do it (install speed cameras) tomorrow."
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Others see the advantage of having police officers free to look out for more serious crime.
"I'd rather, you know, have a camera, technology monitoring traffic infractions and having a police officer out looking for the drug dealer, the pedophile," Assemblyman Matthew Titone (D-Staten Island) told CBS New York. Titone sponsored a similar speed camera bill last November.
Currently, 11 U.S. states use these devices to control traffic and ticket speeding motorists, according to www.caranddriver.com.
The current New York State Legislative session is scheduled to end June 21.
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