Prepared for public discussion
Brent Roberson · September 2026
The concern
Teen drivers face a dangerous combination of inexperience, distraction, speed, passengers and late-night travel. The risk becomes especially visible during the summer “100 Deadliest Days” between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Traditional driver education teaches the rules, but a classroom test does not always prepare a young person for the permanent consequences of one bad decision.
Speeding is not limited to teenagers. On an interstate or high-speed corridor, one trooper may see many vehicles traveling well above the limit but can safely stop only one at a time. North Carolina needs a prevention system that changes behavior before a crash, while keeping officers focused on impaired driving, reckless driving, serious wrecks and other situations requiring human judgment.
The proposal
1. A Teen Driver Responsibility Program
Students around ages 15 and 16 would receive recurring instruction connected to driver education or another required high-school course. Troopers, firefighters, paramedics, medical professionals, crash survivors and trained instructors would explain real consequences in an age-appropriate and respectful way.
The program would cover distraction, speed, impairment, seatbelts, passengers, nighttime driving and the responsibility to intervene when a friend is driving dangerously. Regular contact would also allow young people to know officers as mentors and public servants before meeting one beside the highway.
Students completing the course could sign a voluntary safe-driving covenant and earn one carefully limited second-chance diversion for a first minor traffic offense. The student might receive a reduced fine in exchange for a refresher course, written reflection or safety-service activity. This opportunity would never apply to impaired driving, racing, reckless driving, fleeing an officer, leaving a crash, driving without a license or required insurance, or conduct causing injury or death.
2. Carefully limited speed-camera enforcement
North Carolina would authorize movable, fixed and average-speed systems on data-selected interstates and high-risk corridors. Locations would be chosen from crash history, speeding data, road design, construction activity and documented safety concerns—not their ability to produce revenue.
Advance signs would tell drivers that automated enforcement is in use. Every citation would show the vehicle, plate, date, time, location, posted limit and recorded speed. A sworn officer would review and approve every citation before it was issued.
Automated citations would be modest civil penalties intended to correct behavior. They would not create driver-license points, insurance points, criminal records or automatic insurance increases because a camera ordinarily identifies the vehicle, not the driver. Owners would receive a simple review process and a meaningful right of appeal.
3. Fast notice and fair treatment
Owners should receive notice quickly—electronically when they choose that method and promptly by mail otherwise. Violations occurring before the owner could reasonably receive the first notice would be consolidated or capped during a short notification window. After notice, new violations could be enforced separately so repeated speeding still has a consequence.
Safeguards against surveillance and profit
The program must be designed around safety and constitutional limits:
- Cameras may be placed only where published safety evidence supports their use.
- Equipment must be approved, calibrated and independently audited.
- A sworn officer must approve every citation.
- Vendors must be paid through fixed-price contracts, never a percentage of fines or a per-citation fee.
- Vendors may not select locations or decide whether citations are issued.
- Citation quotas and revenue guarantees are prohibited.
- Images of nonviolating vehicles must be deleted promptly unless a narrow legal hold applies.
- Access, retention, sharing and secondary use of data must be restricted and audited.
- Qualifying low-income owners should have payment plans or a nonfinancial safety-course alternative.
Technology would document routine violations. It would not decide whether a driver is impaired. Cameras may alert a trooper to unusual or dangerous behavior, but only an officer should stop the vehicle, investigate the driver and determine whether charges are justified.
Public-school funding and separate operating costs
North Carolina’s Constitution directs the clear proceeds of civil penalties and fines imposed for violations of state penal laws to public schools. Camera penalties would therefore go to the appropriate public-school fund rather than becoming revenue for law enforcement, a municipality or a private vendor.
The General Assembly should fund cameras, staffing, notices, appeals and audits through a separate appropriation. The safety program should remain capable of operating even when successful deterrence reduces the number of citations.
How success should be measured
The State should publish an annual report showing camera locations, citations, payments, dismissals, appeals, accuracy results, program costs, vendor payments and the amount sent to schools. The public should also see whether treated corridors experience lower speeds, fewer extreme violations, fewer repeat violations and reductions in crashes, injuries and deaths.
Bottom line
North Carolina cannot place a trooper behind every speeding vehicle, and it should not wait for teenagers to learn traffic safety through tragedy. The strongest approach combines education, modest and consistent consequences, human judgment, privacy protection and transparent public reporting. The goal is not to issue more citations. The goal is to create safer habits until fewer citations are needed.
© 2026 Brent Roberson. All rights reserved.