TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Tampa City Council is considering changes to the city’s school zone speed camera program after a traffic study found serious speeding concerns at 18 school zones across Tampa.
During a City Council meeting Thursday, Tampa Police Deputy Chief Patrick Messmer presented findings from a city-approved traffic study conducted by traffic enforcement company RedSpeed.
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“There are 18 of these school zones that average between 200 and even up to 3,000 speeding violations per day,” Messmer said. “Because our goal is making our school zones safer, making our students safer as they’re coming to school, we do want to make sure that the locations that have the most speeding violations are the ones that we’re actually putting our speed cameras at.”
The proposal would amend a city ordinance governing school zone speed enforcement cameras. Tampa currently has 12 designated school zones for cameras.
Under the proposed changes, six of those locations would remain, six would be removed and 12 new school zones would be added, bringing the total number of speed camera zones to 18.
The proposal drew concerns from some council members who questioned whether automated enforcement is the best approach to improving safety.
“I don’t get why we’re going to rely on cameras instead of our law enforcement action,” Councilman Alan Clendenin said.
Councilwoman Naya Young also voiced reservations about relying solely on cameras.
“We need to be more innovative, thinking about how we’re going to keep our children safe because we don’t have to always divert just straight to cameras,” Young said.
Councilwoman Lynn Hurtak raised concerns about privacy and the potential use of camera data with automated license plate recognition systems.
“People are concerned about these cameras being used for Flock or ICE monitoring of citizens,” Hurtak said.
Messmer responded by saying the city could seek assurances from RedSpeed that the camera system would not be connected to Flock.
“I know we can get an affidavit from RedSpeed that they will not send any of our data to Flock,” Messmer said. “They will not integrate with Flock in any way, specifically with our contract.”
Despite those concerns, the City Council approved the measure on first reading with a 6-1 vote, with Clendenin casting the lone dissenting vote.
A second reading of the proposed ordinance is scheduled for July 16.
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