- In the 2025 fiscal year budget, state legislators green-lit a pilot program to implement automated speed cameras in school zones to catch speeding drivers.
- This is due to the lowered amount of police officers not being able to be in school zones during operational hours, but opponents believe that the money should be allocated to increasing those resources.
- Video shows a crossing guard of the city of East Lansing talking to me about what she sees and the East Lansing Police Department's plea to drivers on the roads.
"One of the things that I love the most about the crossing guards is you really get to know the students and the parents that we work with."
As a neighborhood resource specialist, Madison Pride has had the pleasure of serving as a crossing guard at Whitehill Elementary in East Lansing.
"We are in the neighborhoods; we get to know faces and names. We get to say hello," Pride said.
So it's her job to keep kids and parents safe and relies on people driving near Whitehall to pump the breaks.
East Lansing PD told me they're seeing the increases in their communities.
"Speeding, as we've seen across the nation, there has been an uptick, especially since COVID," Lieutenant Adrian Ojerio of the East Lansing Police Department said.
State legislators are proposing a bill that would put cameras in school zones to catch speeders in our neighborhoods.
"Even speeds just five over the speed limit are significant, especially when we are talking about only a 20-mph speed limit in a school zone," Ojerio said.
An approved 2.5 million dollar pilot project for the speed cameras in school zones and House bill 4921 passed on party lines in the house at the end of June could mean the new technology is coming sooner rather than later.
"A lot of younger kids are going to start walking to school, even for the first time; we need your extra help protecting those kids as they head to school," Ojerio said.
Those opposed to the bill say the fines or revenue from the multi-million dollar project don't go back to public libraries as all criminal fines do, noting this is the fourth camera enforcement bill that does that.
But one thing people I spoke with agreed on is keeping the kids in our neighborhoods safe when school is back in August.
Keep the speed low, stop when a pedestrian is in a crosswalk, and follow a crossing guard's directions because that is all state law, Ojerio says.
"Right now we want to thank the community for their efforts and partnerships with us on keeping the children in our community safe," Pride says.
The speed detection camera bill needs to go to the Senate before MDOT implements cameras in a school zone near you.
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