Long Beach installs speed cameras aimed at curbing injuries at dangerous intersections

The city of Long Beach began installing speed cameras in high-risk areas this week with hopes of reducing injury crashes, as other California cities have done in recent years.

According to Public Works Director Joshua Hickman, 18 cameras are expected to be up in about a month and will start rolling out citations in December. The locations, which can be found here, were selected based on high-injury network, as well as proximity to school zones and reported street takeovers, he said.

The push to add speed cameras to Southern California communities comes after Oakland reported a 70% drop in speeding from January to July this year compared to data from two years ago.

"The results are clear: dangerous speeding has declined at locations where speed cameras are installed, which are among the roads where Oakland sees the most severe and fatal crashes," said Oakland Department of Transportation Director Josh Rowan.

Concerns have mounted over the use of similar technology this year, including in Los Angeles, where the LA Police Department recently paused the use of Flock-branded cameras, which is known to store data for law enforcement use.

"These camera systems give the government the power to track our daily lives and unfairly penalize neighborhoods already overpoliced and underinvested," the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, said in a statement. 

Hickman, however, says the speed cameras Long Beach will use aren't automated.

"A photo will be taken of the rear license plate only," he said. "There's no facial recognition, there's no tracking."

While the technology has its critics, many people like Joshua Mora say they support anything that can limit violent collisions, like the one that cost him his leg. In 2023, a motorcycle rider lost control and hit him as he was walking home from school just blocks from his Boyle Heights home.

"[I still feel] a lot of pain," he told CBS LA. "I try to avoid [that intersection]."

Following Long Beach, other cities like LA and Glendale are taking steps to install speed cameras in the near future.