Speed cams' mobile vans keep running while parked

Each of the mobile vans that are part of Nassau County's school-zone speed camera program is parked at the curb for hours at a time. Yet readers report the engines are running even though the vans are unstaffed.

Why, we asked the county, is it necessary for the van engines to operate?

Nassau forwarded a response from American Traffic Solutions, the Tempe, Arizona, company that holds the contract for Nassau's speed camera and red light camera programs.

"The procedure is to run the vehicle intermittently to ensure the battery is not depleted during deployment times," company spokeswoman Kate Coulson said. "School zone speed technology is powered by the batteries installed in the vehicle which are in turn charged by the engine . . . Over time they wear down and the vehicle needs to be started to recharge the batteries."

Coulson said county Public Works staff are deployed during the day to check on the vehicles.

How much gas do the idling engines burn? On average, "a quarter of a gallon per hour," she said; some run more than others, a function of the "volume of the violations captured" by the cameras.

The county has said a total of 20 mobile units will be deployed by the end of the year to supplement 36 cameras installed on poles. Based on the quarter-of-a-gallon hourly average, if all 20 were to run the full 11 hours each school day, 275 gallons would be burned in a five-day school week.

Yet another reason to drive within the school speed limit.

Drivers who are contesting school speed camera tickets have begun to receive dates for their traffic court appearances. The date of one leads us to think there may be a bit of a backlog.

Valley Stream resident Frank Russo, who has received two tickets on Mill Road near Carbonaro Elementary School, opened his mail last week to find he had been assigned a hearing date of June 15, 2015.

What accounts for the eight-month delay?

"This is a new program and my office is making adjustments to speed up the process," Nassau Traffic and Parking Violations Agency Executive Director John Marks said in an email. As for how many drivers have requested hearings and what proportion of the total number of speed camera tickets they represent: "This information is not yet available," he said.

The hearings got underway last week.

Russo's objection is similar to what we've heard about some other locations: School speed limit signs are at the edges of the school zone, as much as a quarter mile from the school, so they can't be seen by drivers entering from side streets close to the school.

The school zone speed limit is 20 mph, but drivers entering northbound Mill Street near the school see only a 30 mph sign two blocks past the school.

Russo has eight months to prepare his case. He was clocked at 31 mph.

Several days each month, when tide levels are at their highest, Niami Street in Seaford is more canal than roadway.

As the tide nears its peak, water pushes up through storm sewers and fills the street. Sidewalks are submerged and vehicles moved out of harm's way.

The neighborhood, south of Merrick Road, is a collection of streets that abut canals and lagoons. Several years ago, Hempstead Town undertook a project to raise the affected streets, work that appears to have been largely successful.

Maltese remembers that project and the hope that arrived, in 2006, when homeowners received a letter reporting that the Town Board had given the go ahead: The street would be elevated and drains installed in driveways.

But the work required all 23 owners on Niami to give the town permission to install drainage on their property. Some refused.

And Niami was excluded.

Maltese had heard that nearby Tiana Street was in similar straits; even so, the work there eventually got done. And he asked if whatever succeeded on Tiana could be applied to Niami.

Tiana benefited from an engineering workaround, Hempstead Town spokesman Mike Deery said. The holdout property was at one end, he said, so "the project was engineered around it."

Such a solution hasn't been possible on Niami because the properties in question are in mid-street, he said. Another potential solution, the use of "check valves" designed to allow water to flow only one way, hasn't proved effective.

Still, Deery said, the town will re-examine the issue: "We are taking another look."

Maltese and his wife, Carol, try to remain hopeful as they wait to see if the town's efforts pay off. But when tides are at their highest, and he relies on a rubber raft to ferry items back and forth, hope isn't easy to find. "We can't leave our houses until the tide turns," he said. "We need some help here from somebody."