Hearing Youth Voices on the Vote to Implement Additional Traffic Cameras: Safety Requires Prevention, Not More Surveillance
By Cj Parker, with Hearing Youth Voices
August 3rd, 2026.
After a 3-3 vote on July 20th, the New London City Council is set to vote, once again, August 3rd, on the implementation of additional traffic cameras. Those opposed and in favor share the same primary concern: safety. How safety is achieved, however, is where many diverge.
Safety requires being proactive. I am not safe from something if it cannot be prevented. As long as streets are designed for speed, as long as the vast majority of people are reliant on driving a personal vehicle, as long as profits supersede people, I am at risk of harm. Simply put, cameras cannot physically prevent danger on our roads. Public transit and safely designed streets can. Cameras also cannot meaningfully address some of the more significant causes of traffic perils, such as driving while intoxicated.
Plenty of studies point to the viability of robust public transit as a contributor to safer roads. The United States’ public transportation infrastructure cannot compare to many countries in Europe, for example, and neither can our road safety. According to the World Health Organization, our 14.2 road traffic deaths per capita would be the 2nd highest of the 44 countries in Europe. Compared to Western Europe, the United States’ traffic deaths are, at best, twice as bad as the worst performing country of Portugal. Our per capita road deaths are nearly 7x as high as those of the United Kingdom and 10x as high as Norway. Safety, in all facets of life, requires the resolution of the root cause. We deserve better infrastructure. We deserve safety. Increased surveillance will not accomplish both.
The next concern is cyber security, an increasingly relevant aspect of our safety. No company or entity can guarantee complete cybersecurity. All data, regardless of the skill and strategies of those protecting it, is vulnerable. Furthermore, the incentive of profit is ever pervasive when it comes to our data. Our personal information has been commodified in the name of ever expanding profit margins. The trading of consumer data is a multibillion-dollar industry expected to exceed $500 billion. Why should the decision-makers of New London place us on a path that allows ICE, which purchases hundreds of millions of dollars worth of data and technology related to data, to gain increased access to its constituents? Why should the decision-makers of New London, a city with one of the highest levels of poverty in New England, potentially provide further surveillance of its constituents to corporations working tirelessly to perfect dynamic pricing? I attended the business school at Northeastern University, where we were taught to maximize profits by any means necessary. The ultimate goal of a business is to be able to extract exactly the most possible money for a good or service at each sale, in this dynamic, pricing would become the tool of charging people more money at every possible chance. The idea – and already the reality in some industries – is that what is a $3 loaf of bread for me at 12:00pm is an $8 loaf of bread for you at 12:01pm. This horrifying business trend destined to widen economic inequality will be perfected through the already intensifying surveillance and data sharing happening today. I’m not sure what the possible interests of our local elected officials could be to amplify these already concerning trends.
Despite any fallacy of ‘well, people are already on camera or sign up for subscriptions, websites, etc.’ those subscriptions and memberships are voluntary and governed by user agreements. Data breaches are also subject to class action lawsuits, what is New London’s liability in this instance? Either way, just because something is the way it is–or has always been that way– does not justify it. This is a logical fallacy known as an appeal to tradition. This is a logical error that should never be used as justification of a harmful status quo. After all, the traditions of this country have been and continue to be theft, slavery, genocide, and paupericide.
For anyone who believes all these issues are not intersectional, especially being from a community as diverse as New London–where we have dozens of countries and every continent represented by our people, mansions by the beach, low-income housing next to environmental threats such as the Gold Star Bridge and waste transfer station, a city which produces musicians, athletes, writers, doctors, laborers, educators, and artists–then I cannot change what your eyes refuse to see. Racism connects to classism connects to sexism connects to xenophobia connects to ageism. Inadequate access to education connects to employment connects to healthcare connects to housing connects to well-being connects to safety. These cameras can connect us to danger and exacerbate the issues our immigrant, Black, and working-class community already confront.