The Sandy Springs City Council approved agreements to allow speed detection devices in school zones and to collaborate with Fulton County Schools (FCS) in emergency situations.
An agreement with FCS will enable Sandy Springs to install speed-detection cameras in school zones. These license plate readers can detect a vehicle’s speed, Maj. Mike Lindstrom of the Sandy Springs Police Department said.
Georgia law allows these devices to operate starting one hour before school starts and up to one hour after the school day ends, he said.
A vehicle identified as speeding will cause a civil citation to be issued against the owner. The vehicle owner can dispute the ticket if someone else was driving.
“But the main premise of the whole program is to improve the safety in those particular areas of the schools,” Lindstrom said.
Several school speed zones have been identified for the license plate reader/speed detection cameras. One location is at North Springs High School on Roswell Road. At Dunwoody Springs Elementary School one of the devices would be installed along Roberts Drive, he said.
Lindstrom said the second agreement for collaboration between the city, police department, and FCS is essentially what has been done since the department’s formation.
The collaboration helps to set procedures and policies such as the first person on the scene taking control until more officers arrive and then they establish command. It also deals with joint training.
“I want to thank the police departments for their perseverance in this and also Fulton County Schools because you know the kinds of emergencies that we, unfortunately, have seen all too often in this country can occur in any community at any time whenever an unbalanced person decides to take up a weapon and harm innocent people,” Mayor Rusty Paul said.