Make Our Roads Safer

Over 60 years of driving, I've been stopped for speeding several times and ticketed about half of those times. I have never contested a ticket

Here's why. One night in the 1970s, in the emergency department at Burien General Hospital, a young man hit by a careless driver died while I worked to save him. I couldn't. I have never forgotten him.

Traffic cameras make all of us drive more carefully, because we know we will be caught.

Roughly 160 people die on King County roads each year. If paying another speeding ticket helps keep a few of them alive, I’m certainly not the only person who will take the deal.

Douwe Rienstra, M.D. Port Townsend

= Letter to the Seattle Times published October 8, 2026 regarding their article titled "SPD's use of traffic cameras under scrutiny" (Sept. 29, front page).