Slow Down
Radar can be defined as a speed detection device. It sends out a radio signal which, once hitting a vehicle, bounces back with a different frequency and is how the speed of a vehicle is determined.
Heavy pedestrian traffic around campus as well as the three pedestrians who have recently been struck by vehicles (GCSU freshman Chloe Jenkins and faculty members Zach Kincaid and Judy Bailey) prompted Public Safety to go through the long process of acquiring radar. Sergeant Nick Reonas said that the safety of the students is a main priority.
“We have a lot of pedestrian traffic around campus, day and night,” Reonas said. “Daytime with people going to classes and nighttime there’s always a lot of people walking around, going downtown and whatnot.”
“It’s not that we’re trying to set up a speed trap. We’re not,” Reonas said. “It’s more or less a deterrent for people to know that we have that ability now, and we are going to enforce the speed limits around here.”
Radar has two modes which are moving and stationary. With moving you can track cars driving in the same directions or those driving in the opposite direction as the patrol car in motion. With stationary you pick up cars moving in both directions. Radar picks up all cars in range, so it can be difficult to pick out a speeding vehicle.
“It’s not as simple as looking at the readout on the screen,” Reonas said. “There’s a lot more that goes into it than that.”
There is an audible tone that is emitted if a car reaches a certain speed. Officers must then check the speed against the vehicle that they are tracking to make sure that it is the right vehicle. So it may be hard to determine who is speeding without training, which every Public Safety officer who uses radar must or has already gone through.
“Every officer who wants to run (radar) has to go through a 16-hour class,” Reonas said. “They have to pass a test. They have to do 16 hours of on the job training. It’s 32 hours of training.”
Along with the GCSU campus and downtown area, Public Safety is also looking at other areas to monitor speed, such as the student apartment complexes surrounding the school due to their high amounts of traffic as well.
“Down on Franklin Street, as you know, we have The Grove and Colonial Village down there,” Reonas said. “There are students crossing down there all the time and there’s no crosswalk… The speed limit’s 25 over there, and we’ve been checking cars going 20, 25, 30 miles over the speed limit. it’s a problem.”
GCSU students had mixed reactions about Public Safety cracking down on speedsters.
“No, no, no,” junior David Lazaro said. “I understand the safety thing, but I have a lead foot, I’m not afraid to admit that. I don’t need even more police tracking my speed. My wallet can’t afford another ticket.”
Junior Jeff Fajay supported the use of radar, citing safety as a big thing but also holding some reservations.
“If it’s just kept around the school, then I’m okay with that,” Fajay said. “There’s no point of trying to catch speeders on the highway, but I’m not trying to get hit by a car, so I’m all for (radar) if it slows people down.”
Public Safety had to go through the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Public Safety to earn the rights to use radar. For any road that they want to run radar on, they must go through DPS again as well as the Department of Transportation to get it approved. Reonas hopes that the time and effort Public Safety is putting into the new system will help people become more aware of their surroundings as well as the pedestrians in the city.
“We’re trying to get people to slow down, mainly,” said Reonas. “We’re not out here to hassle people. We don’t want anybody else to get hit and really hurt. We’ve been lucky that we haven’t had anybody killed around here.”
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Apr 24 2009. Filed under News.
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