Tired of the Speeders? Turn on the Cameras.

Kirkwood has poured a tremendous amount of sweat and treasure across multiple administrations into becoming a more walkable community. And while I have nits to pick here and there, overall these efforts have been worthwhile and successful.

But no amount of curb bump-outs or bike lanes has convinced the blatant rule-breakers to stop blatantly breaking the rules.

What The Speed Study Told Us

Earlier this year, Kirkwood published a citywide speed study utilizing data that was collected from 75 locations around town over five days in May 2024. These locations covered both streets owned and maintained by the city, as well as those like Big Bend, Manchester, and South Kirkwood that are owned and maintained by the St. Louis County and MoDOT, where the city has less influence. The study looked at how fast people were driving, how often they crashed, and layered in other context—like surrounding socioeconomic conditions—to prioritize the biggest problem spots in the city.

One of the most important metrics from that study was the 85th percentile speed. In general, if the 85th percentile of drivers (meaning the ones driving faster than 85% of everyone else) is more than 5 mph over the limit, it means you either need to raise the speed limit or change the design of the street to slow them down. Unfortunately, in 55 of the 75 locations studied, drivers blew past that threshold:

As a general rule of thumb, if the 85th percentile of drivers is more than 5mph above the posted speed limit, you should do one of three things: 1) lower the speed limit, 2) redesign the street so people are inclined to slow down, or 3) ramp up enforcement. By design, the study’s recommendations focused on the first two of these items, offering tailored suggestions for how to bring speeds to acceptable levels in each of the problematic locations. You can check out the full list, ranked by priority, of the study’s recommended interventions here, but most of the interventions come from the menu seen below:

Some of these locations already had fixes in the works before the study was published:

• Raised intersections are planned for Clay & Argonne and Clay & Jefferson intersections as part of the Clay Ave overhaul
• Lane reductions have been included in the preliminary plans for both Phase I (Bodley to Adams) and Phase II (Monroe to Woodbine) of the Kirkwood Road project. Phase I also includes a mid-block crossing between The James and Global Foods
• Even on projects that seemingly included little in the way of walkability upgrades, like the repaving of the Lindeman, South Geyer Big Bend, and West Essex include small but meaningful inclusions, like curb bump-outs to shorten the crossing distance for pedestrians
• The city also struck a deal with Glendale to help pay for sidewalk infill on East Essex between Dickson and Hill Drive
• At their 2/06/2025 meeting, the Council voted to purchase eleven speed feedback cameras (the kind that show drivers their speed while they pass) at a total cost of $59,815 (~$2,720 a piece since you need one for each side of the road).
• Then, a month later, the Council voted to reduce the speed limit on West Monroe between Clay and Kirkwood from 25mph to 20mph, and the speed limit on West Jefferson between Clay and Kirkwood from 20mph to 15mph. The study acknowledges that in most places, reducing the posted limit without making any accompanying changes to street design is not sufficient for changing behavior, but in these two cases, traffic was already sufficiently slow enough that such a change would have a positive effect.
• SS4A funded projects ([link]

These are meaningful interventions. I still think lane reductions should extend farther south on Kirkwood Road, and I remain frustrated when city staff remove sidewalks to avoid adding stop signs or vote against speed limit reductions elsewhere. But big picture, Kirkwood has made tremendous strides for pedestrian safety and I’m confident these changes will slow down the 85th percentile of speeders by 3, 4, 5, 6 mph. What I’m much less confident in is the ability of these interventions to slow the 99th percentile by 50 mph or more.

Fast & Furious

The speed study didn’t just look at typical speeds. It also recorded the top speeds captured that week. And some of these top speeds, recorded not on interstates but just run-of-the-mill city streets, are truly mind-boggling:

Now, do I think someone really drove 202 mph down Big Bend? Unlikely. Some of the biggest numbers are surely measurement errors of some sort, and others are perhaps emergency personnel responding to urgent calls. But even if you ignore the outliers and focus on the middle of the list —100 mph at Kirkwood & Jefferson, 98 mph on Adams by Sugar Creek— you can see we have a real problem on our hands. Over the course of five random days in May, a huge portion of city streets saw someone driving at interstate speeds.

It’s hard to know exactly what context in which these speeds were reached, whether Kirkwood is home to an underground drag racing ring or whether it’s a Lamborghini owner living out their Fast & Furious fantasy, but regardless, it’s dangerous, and design tweaks aren’t going to stop it from happening.

An Answer to Anti-Social Speeders

The people driving this fast aren’t going to be chastened by a flashing feedback sign telling them “SLOW DOWN.” They’ll be half a mile away before their speed even registers. The only thing that will stop these anti-social speeders is enforcement.

And the good news is that, on some level, the Council seems to know this. Shortly after they were sworn in, at their July 3rd, 2024 work session, the Council inquired as to their power to encourage increased traffic enforcement efforts, but were informed that the “legislative body cannot dictate the Police department issue more tickets.” What the Council can do, however, is give the police the resources they need to enforce the rules that are already on the books. What they can do is turn on the cameras.

Are Speed Cameras Legal in Missouri?

If you remember, St. Louis had to take down its speed cameras after the State Supreme Court ruled they couldn’t prove who was driving, only which car was speeding.

But technology has advanced and St. Louis is now working to restart its automatic enforcement program using systems that identify drivers, not just license plates. Hannibal, Missouri, ran a similar program along a dangerous highway before ending it this spring due to resident complaints about fines, replacing it with Flock cameras that record plates to help identify stolen vehicles but don’t issue tickets. That experience shows these programs are politically contentious, but legally feasible, even on state- or county-owned roads like Manchester, Big Bend, and South Kirkwood where the worst speeding happens.

The Case for Cameras

While automatic enforcement cameras are still pretty rare in Missouri, they’re fairly common elsewhere. And from what we can see , in the places that have adopted them, they’ve been a smashing success:

• The adoption of speed cameras in school zones in New York City led to a reduction in crash injuries by 15%, a reduction in pedestrian injuries by 23%, and an overall reduction in school zone speeding of 63%
• The adoption of red light cameras in Seattle led to a 23% decline in collisions and a ~30% reduction in pedestrian collisions
• In suburban Montgomery County, MD, researchers say speed cameras reduced the likelihood that a crash resulted in a serious or fatal injury by 39% and have averted more than 500 serious injuries or deaths in the decade that they’ve been in operation

I also want to emphasize that the goal of automatic enforcement cameras is to generate zero dollars in ticket revenue, not to soak the community. The idea is that because people know they’ll get caught, they simply stop speeding. Of course, it takes time to build that deterrence effect, and there will always be out-of-town drivers unaware of local enforcement.

When fines are collected, the money should be funneled directly into pedestrian safety efforts so that we can create a sort of positive feedback loop: more cameras, traffic calming, or funding for police to focus on real crime instead of speed traps.

Finally, speed cameras are the fairest possible enforcement tool. They don’t get tired. They don’t play favorites. They don’t require overtime pay. They simply enforce the law, consistently.

Start Where It Matters Most

Automatic enforcement should start on Kirkwood’s high-injury corridors—Big Bend, Manchester, Kirkwood Road—especially where they intersect with school zones like Nipher and North Middle. And let’s add red-light cameras at problem intersections, like Big Bend & Geyer, where a drunk driver blew through a red and killed a teacher last May. Would a camera have prevented that? Maybe not. But it might have caught him on a prior offense before tragedy struck.

The Bottom Line

Design changes slow the compliant. Cameras catch the reckless. If Kirkwood wants to truly protect pedestrians—and everyone else on the road—it’s time to turn on the cameras.