Wednesday is the first day of the school year for Baldwin County School District students.
It’s also the first day of the school year for Baldwin County’s RedSpeed school safety zone program.
However, there will be numerous changes to the program this year, most notably in front of Midway Hills Elementary School, where the RedSpeed tickets apparently are being phased out, according to Chief Deputy Scott Deason with the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office.
This is due to House Bill 1161, which was passed into law earlier this year. According to the text of the new law, “no (Redspeed ticketing) permit shall be issued for placement upon a highway within a school zone with four lanes that does not have a crosswalk across such lanes.” The stretch of US 441 in front of Midway Hills obviously has four lanes, and it also has no crosswalk.
“Midway Hills currently isn’t part of our plan,” Deason said.
However, Deason said that representatives with RedSpeed currently are attempting to negotiate with the Georgia Department of Transportation to enforce tickets in the “northbound lane only,” which heads back to Milledgeville.
“They are in discussions with the DOT on getting some clarity on the law is all I know,” he said. “But, as of right now, Log Cabin (Road) will be our only (RedSpeed enforcement zone).”
Out of all the RedSpeed zones in Baldwin County, the one at Midway Hills easily has produced the most speeding tickets. A total of 5,925 citations were mailed out to speeders in front of Midway during the previous school year, an average of 33 tickets per school day. This was nearly as many as Baldwin County’s four other RedSpeed zones, combined.
The end result, from the Midway Hills zone alone, was $312,000 in revenue for the BCSO during the previous school year. RedSpeed handles the logistics side and transactional side, charging the BCSO and MPD a series of fees. When it’s all said and done, however, the law enforcement agencies receive 65 percent of all “violations paid,” while RedSpeed’s cut is 35 percent.
The new law pertaining to four-lane highways without crosswalks will not impact any of the other local RedSpeed zones. The stretch in front of Baldwin High is only three lanes.
Also, moving forward, RedSpeed tickets can be thrown out if someone other than the owner of the vehicle was driving when the vehicle was ticketed. Previously, all citations were issued to the owner of the vehicle, regardless of who was driving. Now, motorists can “testify under oath in open court or submits to the court a sworn notarized statement that he or she was not the operator of the vehicle at the time of the alleged violation.”
Also, the reduced “school zone speed limit” can only be enforced for a one-hour window in the morning and a one-hour window in the afternoon. This will impact South Elbert Street along Georgia Military College’s campus. In recent years, the school zone speed limit has been 30 miles per hour from 7 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. on school days. Beginning in August, however, it will only be 30 mph for one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. During the bulk of school day, the speed limit will be 35 mph through GMC, which means that 46 mph will trigger a speeding ticket instead of 41, aside from the one hour in the morning and the one hour in the afternoon.
Meanwhile, the rest of Baldwin County’s RedSpeed zones – Baldwin High, John Milledge Academy and Oak Hill Middle/ Lakeview Primary/ Midway Hills Primary – already operate on a “one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon” schedule.