The Cedartown City Commission liked what they had to hear out of a proposal for speed cameras to go up in school zones during their Monday work session, and a contract with the company providing the service is now under review.

After providing the County Commission and the School Board the chance to hear about the service, RedSpeed’s Greg Parks was before the City Commission this past Monday (October 5) to talk about the service they provide and the opportunity to help reduce speeding through school zones that need it.

In a speed study provided to the Commission via RedSpeed and the Cedartown Police Department, they found that on a single day of tracking they had 275 violations in front of the Cedartown High School/Westside Elementary School entrance on Rockmart Highway alone, and 798 violations in front of the high school on the Highway 27 bypass and 1,135 in front of the Middle School more than a mile down the road.

The cameras would only got into these three areas for school zones, and exclude Cherokee Elementary and Northside Elementary due to their locations and since no speed studies have been conducted.

Parks said in other areas that have already installed the camera system they use that it works to reduce speeds in school zones.

“It’s a good educational program, we’re seeing a 60-70% reductions in the programs that we’ve had in place for a while,” he said.

He added that “It is hard for someone to come to a podium during a meeting and say “I was going 50 in a speed zone when kids were there.”

Parks turned the floor over the Police Chief Jamie Newsome, who provided his own thoughts on why he thought the system was a positive benefit for the city. He did understand concerns of residents locally about how the speed cameras would work.

“One question that I’ve gotten since this has come out in the media is, ‘is this computer writing people tickets? Is this company mailing people tickets’?” ?Newsome began.

He went onto explain in detail how the system works in relation to how tickets are issued, and provided assurance that a computer doesn’t have a final say over whether someone gets a ticket for speeding or not.

“There are three sets of human eyes on top of the computer,” Newsome explained. “They have at their company two independent sets of eyes that verify whether someone is speeding… before they even submit the ticket to us, and then someone on staff at the Cedartown Police Department that would have the final say-so as it relates to the issuance of a ticket.”

Commission Chair Matt Foster said as a full time educator who moved from Northside Elementary to Cedartown Middle School this year, he understands well the dangers of speeders on the Highway 27 bypass.

“I went from this little school right over here where I worked for 12 years to that middle school, and I have to leave work five minutes earlier to still be on time. For 12 years, I’ve never noticed any speeding right here (next to city hall on Philpot Street.) When I’m out there? Oh yeah, I see it,” Foster said. “I had a friend of mine, and I’m not going to say this is because of it, but I had a friend of mine who was killed on that bypass while she was in high school. I had graduated the year before, and she was on her way to school that morning and was killed.”

He added that his previous experience driving in Australia – where cameras are a normalized and prevalent tool for law enforcement – taught him the effectiveness of being a safer driver because of the threat of getting tickets in the mail.

“I noticed everyone drove really well, clearly. They didn’t weave in and out,” he said. “They have cameras on just about every overpass, and if you go over 100 kpm – something like 60 mph – but you might not know it then but you will when you get a lot of tickets in the mail.”

He and other city commissioners expressed the positive effect the cameras might bring.

“I like that our police chiefs on the county and city level are backing it,” he said.

City Manager Edward Guzman said that after Monday’s meeting and the Commission’s desire to move forward, a formal review of the contract proposed between the city and RedSpeed will have to be reviewed. He said it is possible if the review is completed before the November meeting that Commissioners will have a chance to vote on the issue then.

The RedSpeed system has all kinds of capabilities with 24 hour a day, seven days a week operations that they can provide to the Cedartown Police Department. An example that Parks used and Newsome extended on is the ability pull up footage and look for vehicles who might have been driving in the direction where the cameras will be located, and give them an opportunity to catch a tag number and at least go question an individual about a crime.

Or if the camera spots a tag number belonging to someone who has a temporary protection order, it can notify police officials at a school and have them be on the lookout for anyone who isn’t supposed to be on campus.

They’ll also put together a website for Cedartown’s camera system itself so motorists who receive a ticket in the mail from the system can watch themselves speeding through the intersection. Additionally, Parks said that the goal is to provide education and reduce speeding in school zones overall and provide tools for law enforcement.

The way RedSpeed makes money is through the tickets they send out, which are not criminal but civil citations. For motorists who wish to contest the fine, they can take it to court and have the case heard before a judge just like if they were being pulled over by a police officer. The difference is that the ticket doesn’t count points on your license, and the fines are in set amounts depending on how many times you have been caught speeding. They will send out three notices about paying for the ticket before sending it to collections.

However, state law does require that school districts be involved by requiring their participation in the effort by being the applicant through the Georgia Department of Transportation for the cameras to go up, even though the Cedartown Police Department makes the revenue in a 65-35 split in favor of the city.