CLEVELAND – Cleveland Police Department is exploring a partnership that would target the most serious speeders in one of the city's school zones.
Utilizing a new state law that allows the use of traffic monitoring cameras in school zones to help reduce the number of speeding violations, the goal is the make the area safer for students.
On Monday, Cleveland Police Chief John Foster presented the results of a recent traffic study to the city council.
The speed study near Jack P. Nix Elementary School on West Kytle Street (Ga. 115) was conducted by RedSpeed Georgia, and Foster said the one-day study counted a total of 8,800 vehicles that traveled the road between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Of that number, just more than 800 speeding violations occurred.
Foster said if the city agrees to work with RedSpeed for the monitoring service there would be no cost to the city to set up the system. Instead, RedSpeed would take a percentage of the fines assessed.
Also, if the service is implemented, Foster said only the most serious violators will be ticketed though the system.
“It is serious, and it is meant to get people’s attention,” Foster said. “There will be signs that will be put up. There will be cameras on poles on each side of the school zone. There will be flashing lights; there will be signs saying their speed is being checked by camera, so not a surprise. It’s not a ‘gotcha’ kind of thing. It’s to get your attention and slow down.”
The city council asked Foster to gather some additional information about the services provided by RedSpeed before making a decision on implementing the measure.
