The Gwinnett County School Zone Safety Program announced Wednesday the addition of five new speed cameras that will be placed in various school zones around the county.
The safety program reportedly aims to reduce the number of speed violations seen in school zones by promoting the safety of students and staff. Locations with speed cameras have approximately 50% fewer violations since the inception of the program, based on statistics provided by the Gwinnett County Police Department in coordination with RedSpeed.
The five locations where the new speed cameras were installed include:
- Brookwood High School – 1255 Dogwood Rd & Holly Brook Rd, Snellville
- Meadowcreek High School – 4455 Steve Reynolds Blvd, Norcross
- Starling Elementary School – 1725 Grayson Hwy, Grayson
- North Gwinnett Middle School – 170 Peachtree Industrial Blvd, Sugar Hill
- Richards Middle School - 3555 Sugarloaf Pkwy, Lawrenceville
The average time a flashing school zone speed limit sign is on is one hour, correlating with the approximate time school starts and ends.
The cameras themselves will run throughout the day during school hours, and are reportedly a “net zero cost to the county and no cost to the taxpayers,” according to Gwinnett County officials.
The cameras have an integrated automatic license plate reader that operates 24/7 and works with existing police tracking and detection systems.
Violations of the speed ordinances are considered civil violations, rather than traffic or moving violations, and as such, will not result in the raising of insurance costs or added points to a person’s driver’s license, according to Gwinnett County’s website.
Additionally, Georgia state law indicates all vehicles “traveling 11mph over the posted speed limit may be cited for such violation,” which only applies to violations obtained through the speed cameras. However, if a uniformed officer is present, the officer is allowed to cite a violation for 1mph over the posted limit.
