Stamford to install 14 speed safety cameras in school zones
The city says the schools they chose are all places where at least half the students walk to class and studies show at least 15% of drivers go 6 mph or more over the speed limit.
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It's all thanks to an approval from the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
"It's another tool in our toolbox," said Luke Buttenwieser, the city's transportation planner. "Speeding is the No. 1 determiner of fatalities, or serious injuries in a crash, so if we're able to bring that speed down, we're automatically making the whole system safer."
The plan calls for cameras put facing each direction at seven different schools - Cloonan Middle, Springdale Elementary, Dolan/Toquam, Stark Elementary, Strawberry Hill, K.T. Murphy Elementary and Stamford High, where a student was hit and killed back in 2016.
"I used to walk to school my freshman year because I don't live to far, and it definitely is a hazard, people speed a lot," said Gianna Ferrara, a current senior at Stamford High School.
"People will speed up even when children are cross the street - I almost wrote a letter to the city asking for them, so I think it's a great idea," said Felice Lang, who lives across the street from Stark Elementary.
The city says the schools they chose are all places where at least half the students walk to class and studies show at least 15% of drivers go 6 mph or more over the speed limit.
Five of the seven schools are also on "high injury network" roads, meaning they have a particularly high number of crashes that causes serious injuries or death.
"There's a break-even number we were able to find around 6,700 violations which I think based on other municipalities, we'll be probably get to, so the program does pay for itself," Buttenwieser explained.
The tickets will not be reported to insurance or count towards points on a driver's license.
After the cameras are installed, there will be a 30-day warning period, after which any vehicle going at least 10 mph over the speed limit will have to pay a $50 fine, plus $15 processing fee for their first violation.
All violations after that will be a $75 fine, plus the processing fee.
"The whole point of this is not just for collecting revenue and being secretive about everything, there's signs saying, 'speed limit, photo enforced,'" said Buttenwieser. "We want to have people slow down in front of our schools."
Any extra money made from the tickets will be reinvested by the city back into other roadway safety improvements.
"Knowing there's implications with it, I think will do something," said Ferrara.
"There's few things that people will be more worried about than having to pay a ticket so, I think in context, it's a good idea," agreed Jonah Lotstein, another senior at Stamford High.
