Soddy Daisy soon to reinforce school zone speed limits with traffic cameras

SODDY-DAISY, Tennessee (WDEF) – In an effort to make school zones safer for buses, student drivers, and cops directing traffic, the city of Soddy Daisy will be installing eight new speed cameras.
The company Blue Line Solutions manufactures the cameras and has agreed to install and operate the cameras at no cost to the tax payer. Sgt. Keith Hindman with Soddy Daisy Police Department said he wants to stress the fact that these cameras will only be operational when school zone speeds are enforced and they are not a speed trap.

“When you’re approaching a school zone, it will flash your speed. If you’re going 11 miles over the posted school zone speed limit, you have 600 feet to slow down and get within the school zone speed limit without getting a ticket. So it’s fair warning,” said Sgt. Hindman.

Sgt. Hindman said the cameras are truly a matter of maintaining safety in the school zones.

“It’s truly all about taking care of the children. The thing is, too, this will help the officers, because we have to work school traffic. This will help us as well and also keep us safe. You know, we’ve been in school zone several times and can tell obviously that someone is going over 15 or 30 miles an hour but we have to direct traffic and that person just goes on,” said Hindman. “Roughly on any given school day, we have 4000 kids that we’re dealing with. You have to factor in buses, and then people just traveling from point A to point B. As an officer for Soddy Daisy for six years, I can attest to the speed. You know that people travel these good old back roads, and it’s dangerous. So that’s what we got them.”

The citations will be $50. However, for the first month they are operational the cameras will only issue warning citations. There is still no set date for camera installation.