CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte city leaders are trying to solve a problem that happens weekly if not daily: deadly crashes on city streets.
Monday afternoon, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department was called to investigate a crash that killed two people and shut down a busy southeast Charlotte street for hours near the Publix grocery store on Randolph Road in the Cotswold neighborhood.
Police are still working to determine what led to the crash, but city leaders say speeding, running red lights, and street racing are problems many people in the community are fed up with.
"We have people that drive like complete morons," Charlotte City Council member Larken Egleston said.
CMPD said 81 people died on the streets of Charlotte due to car accidents in 2020. So far this year, 64 people have died the same way.
"We've got to get a handle on speeding on our streets," council member Dimple Ajmera said.
Speed cameras and red light cameras were used in Charlotte until 2006 when a state court told the city of High Point that 90% of the money made from its red-light camera tickets had to go to the local school board.
The City of Charlotte said that creates a cost problem: never getting reimbursed by ticket money to pay for the cameras.
"But I think it's one of the biggest problems we have in our city because people know they're not going to be stopped," Mayor Pro Tem Julie Eiselt said.
Eiselt is in favor of red-light cameras, saying something has to be done.
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"It's a real frustration that we can't really have a tool that is making it very clear to people we will penalize them if they run through a red light," Eiselt said.
A major with CMPD told city council the department doesn't do a whole lot of red-light traffic violations but did say CMPD is in support of any technology that's proven to make the streets safer. Mayor Vi Lyles is now asking a subcommittee to look at different technologies and to have an update for council by the end of the year.
Contact Hunter Sáenz at hsaenz@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.