RedSpeed school zone speeding tickets are a polarizing topic around town.
Some people will tell you the tickets make school zones safer, while other people simply can’t stand them.
Regardless, new restrictions are now in effect after Gov. Brian Kemp signed a pair of bills into law earlier this spring. Among other things, the new legislation caps tickets at $75. A first violation in Milledgeville/Baldwin County has been $75 and $125 for “repeat offenders.” The $125 tickets will now go away.
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 between 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 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. The rest of Baldwin County’s RedSpeed zones – Midway Hills Elementary, Baldwin High, John Milledge Academy, Oak Hill Middle/ Lakeview Primary/Midway Hills Primary – already operate on a “one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon” schedule.
Perhaps most notable, in the future, the issue will be left up to voters, and city governments and country governments must hold a ballot referendum before moving forward with a system like RedSpeed.
For places like Milledgeville, however, there’s a catch. Law enforcement agencies that already have an existing contract with RedSpeed or a similar provider “may continue such utilization without a referendum only until the expiration, renewal, or extension of such contract.”
The Milledgeville Police Department’s agreement with RedSpeed doesn’t end for another 10 years. Attempts to obtain similar information from the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office were unsuccessful, and it’s not immediately clear when the BCSO’s contract with RedSpeed expires.
The Sheriff’s Office oversees the RedSpeed cameras on US 441 South in front of Midway Hills, as well as the ones in front of JMA. The MPD, meanwhile, has the ones at GMC, Baldwin High and Blandy Road.
RedSpeed receives 35 percent of the revenue, while the BCSO and MPD get 65 percent. The revenue for law enforcement “can only be spent on new police equipment or for school safety programs and initiatives.”