To the editor:

We are writing in response to Lawrence Bowen’s letter to the editor which stated that there is insufficient data to support the use of speed cameras in school zones in Barrington. His only reasoning against installing speed cameras is his own personal anecdote.

The data reveals the following. According to the NHTSA January 2018 report, 1,282 people of all ages were killed in school transportation-related crashes between 2007-2016. Of these, 216 were pedestrians, 52 of whom were struck by a non-school vehicle. If you widen the scope beyond school zones and school-transportation crashes, 67,124 child pedestrians are injured and 626 are killed annually, according to CDC WISQARS 2005-2010. According to NIH, motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of child and adolescent deaths in 2016, with 4,074 killed, a rate of 5.21 per 100,000 kids. This outpaced firearm-related deaths, which was the second leading cause that year with 3,143 deaths. In addition, studies from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety have shown that small increases in speed equate to much larger increases in risk to pedestrians, noting the risk of death and serious injury increases by 25 percent and 54 percent, respectively, with an increase in speed of 20 mph. 

The data that Dr. Bowen requested (injuries per school zones in Barrington at specific times of day) is so prohibitively specific that there is, not surprisingly, no compiled data. Even if data existed, the sample size would be so small that any data would likely be no better than anecdotal evidence. 

So what do we do with these numbers? Maybe these numbers aren’t high enough to constitute a problem in Dr. Bowen’s opinion. Maybe because he doesn’t recall there ever being an injury, there isn’t a need to enforce traffic laws. By the same reasoning, if we cannot recall any gun deaths in Barrington in recent years, maybe we should also stop enforcing laws concerning firearms. 

If you look at the most specific data point available (kids killed in school zones by a non-school vehicle) 52 children over a period of nine years may not sound like many. Until it’s your child. Or your grandchild. Or your neighbor. We don’t know why, as a society, we’ve decided that until it happens to me, there’s nothing we should do to make positive societal changes. To some people, the smallest inconvenience (following posted speed limits near a school) constitutes the heaviest hand of government. We will never understand that.

The goal here is so small. Perhaps we cannot stop cars from running red lights in the center of town, or speeding down Massasoit Avenue and Middle Highway. But every report we have found concludes that reducing vehicle speed is one way to decrease the number of pedestrian injuries and deaths, and by enforcing existing laws more effectively, we can make the areas around our schools safer for our kids. 

Ryan Pancoast

Shelly Pancoast, DVM

Barrington