June 18, 2018, 2:45 PM

Police Commissioner O'Neill joins push for speed cameras near schools

By ERIN DURKIN

Police Commissioner James O'Neill, speaking outside Public School 264 in Brooklyn on Monday, urges Albany to pass a bill that would preserve speed cameras near school zones. (Go Nakamura for New York Daily News)

Police Commissioner James O’Neill pushed state legislators Monday to let the city set up more speed cameras to catch drivers flooring it through school zones where kids are trying to cross the street.

“Speed cameras certainly do help save lives,” the top cop said outside Public School 264 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn — which doesn’t have a camera now, but could get one if Albany signs off on the bill.

Without legislation in the closing days of the state legislative session, the city will lose the authority to even use the speed cameras it already has. If the bill passes, officials will be allowed to install them around another 150 schools, upping the number on the street to 290.

Data have shown that most people caught speeding by one of the cameras don’t do it again after they get a ticket in the mail, O’Neill noted, saying the devices “send a strong message to motorists that speeding will not be tolerated.”

The school’s principal and parents said crossing Fourth Ave. to get to class can be perilous.

“Because of the speeding problem, we find it very unsafe,” said Zaman Mashrah, a mother of four, including three P.S. 264 students. She said she tells her kids to walk on the opposite side of her from traffic so if they get hit by a car, she will take the brunt of it.

“Please do not wait until a tragedy occurs to take action,” Mashrah said.

The state Assembly passed legislation Monday night to extend the expiring camera law. But with just two more scheduled days left in the legislative session, the bill’s fate remain uncertain in the Senate, where GOP leader John Flanagan (R-Suffolk) has sought to attach other issues to its passage.

“The merits of the bill should stand alone,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) told the Daily News. “The Senate should take this up and pass it for the safety of kids in New York.”

In addition to Flanagan’s wishes, Sen. Simcha Felder, (D-Brooklyn) has vowed not to move the bill out of the committee he heads unless his proposal to put a police officer at every school is also passed.

A red light camera in Manhattan. (Craig Warga/New York Daily News)

O’Neill did not say whether he would be willing to support that bill as part of a deal.

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association opposes the speed camera push.

“New York City police officers want to make our streets safe for everybody who uses them, but automated traffic enforcement cameras are not the solution,” union head Patrick Lynch said Monday. “Red light and speed cameras cannot do the job of a live, professionally trained police officer — they can’t take a drunk, unlicensed or uninsured driver off the road, and they won’t catch evidence of other crimes that might be apparent to a police officer conducting a traffic stop.”

Dr. Oxiris Barbot, first deputy commissioner of the Health Department, said that when a pedestrian is hit by a car going 30 mph, the victim is twice as likely to die than when the car is going 25 mph. And at schools where there are speed cameras, speeding has fallen an average of 63% and pedestrian injuries are down 23%.

“The good news is that these fatalities are preventable,” she said.

With Kenneth Lovett