The Starkville Board of Aldermen will today hear a proposal from American Traffic Solutions to install video cameras in select intersections of the city to photograph vehicles running red lights.Lynn Spruill, Starkville’s chief administrative officer, said the board will hear a 10-minute presentation on how Starkville would benefit from installing cameras at some of the city’s busiest intersections. The board will consider it for action at the next regular meeting on Feb. 20.
Spruill said camera enforcement is something that will be more prevalent throughout the state since Attorney General Jim Hood released an official statement regarding the enforcement on Dec. 13.
In the opinion released to Tupelo, Hood recognized that Sections 63-3-201 and 63-9-11 of the Mississippi Code recognized a violation of the rules of the road as a criminal violation.
“The City of Tupelo is not prohibited from enacting additional ordinances also making disobedience or disregard of a traffic control signal a civil offense,” Hood said. “Such an ordinance would not be ‘inconsistent’ with the state scheme for punishment for disobedience of traffic control devices but would be additional thereto.”
Spruill said the purpose behind the cameras is public safety.
“We can’t have a policeman at every intersection,” she said. “I don’t think there’s a downside to it on a city level.”
Spruill said probably four to five intersections would have the cameras installed, and traffic volume and accident rate will be examined to evaluate which intersections need the cameras the most.
“It is going to hopefully allow us to have a presence where we haven’t been able to before,” she said. “The statistics are phenomenal of accidents going down where these cameras have been installed in other places.”
Glenn McCullough Jr., the former Tupelo mayor, represents American Traffic Solutions in Mississippi and said “I think their technology is the best,” according to The Clarion-Ledger.
Some state representatives such as Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, do not agree with the camera enforcement.
In a statement to The Clarion-Ledger, Holland said cities considering the program have been “sold a bill of goods by the former mayor [McCullough],” and there were better ways to stop people from running red lights.
Other cities considering the program include Columbus and Biloxi. More information about American Traffic Solutions can be found online at www.atsol.com.