A village well-known as a Franklin County speed trap is at it again after a 3-year hiatus
· Yahoo NewsAfter ceasing to issue traffic citations in 2021, a village well-known as a Franklin County speed trap is at it again.
The village of Brice, situated south of Reynoldsburg and west of Pickerington, is again using automated cameras to crack down on speeders along Brice Road, which sees an average of 30,000 cars a day.
And those cameras have been busy. The village — home to only 93 people, according to the 2020 census — has issued roughly 3,000 speeding tickets since Aug. 20, the first day the cameras were active, according to Police Chief Delano "Bud" Bauchmoyer.
"We have been trying for 30 years to get people to slow down, and I think they go down Brice Road to avoid the traffic on Gender (Road), and they think it's a racetrack or something," Brice Mayor John Mathys said.
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For more than a decade, Brice has had a reputation as a speed trap. Despite being only 1.2 square miles, the village's officers were issuing as many traffic citations as some big Columbus suburbs more than a decade ago. For example, in 2011, Brice handled 555 traffic cases, The Dispatch previously reported.
But in 2012, the state passed a bill outlawing mayor's courts in villages with populations of less than 200 — taking away the financial incentive to issue tickets and pocket the fines. Brice switched to issuing tickets using automated cameras and third-party vendors. But the village stopped using the cameras in 2021.
Now the village has two automated cameras, one at each end of a school zone for Brice Christian Academy.
That section of Brice Road has a normal speed limit of 25 mph and 20 mph during the school day, but Bauchmoyer said drivers are traveling significantly faster. For example, the cameras caught one car going 68 mph.
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These cameras only operate one hour before school and two hours after, Bauchmoyer said — meaning they aren't capturing speeders during school hours, late in the evening or overnight.
The village has three tiers of fines for speeding through the school zone: $105 for going 21-29 mph, $125 for traveling 30-49 mph or $145 for going faster than 50 mph, Bauchmoyer said.
Speeders also have to incur a $111 filing fee from Franklin County Municipal Court, taking their fine to $236 for, say, going 30 mph in the 20 mph school zone.
Bauchmoyer said the village doesn't yet have a total amount collected from the fines because the village is waiting on Franklin County Municipal Court to process cases.
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Mathys said the money goes into the village's general fund and is used for whatever is needed, from streetlights to street paving.
The village works with a third-party vendor, which supplies the cameras. The village did not have to pay for the system and instead splits the fines 60/40. So, if someone gets a $125 fine, the village gets $75, and the vendor gets $50, Bauchmoyer said.
While the cameras are automated, Bauchmoyer reviews a report and verifies an image was captured either in the hour before or two hours after school. From there, the vendor mails citations to the registered vehicle owner. The citation is filed with Franklin Count Municipal Court at the same time, Bauchmoyer said.
Based on when the village previously operated a program like this, Bauchmoyer said the number of speeders doesn't really decrease, but it does lower the rate of speed at which people drive. So, instead of some cars going anywhere from 60 to 70 mph through a 25 mph zone, they were going 38-42 mph, he said.
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Brice Christian Academy, a K-8 school with about 300 students, is the only school within the small village. Protecting those children is a top priority for Bauchmoyer, he said.
"The kids are the greatest investment we have for our future," Bauchmoyer said. "If we don't take care and protect our children now, we won't have a future."
This story was updated to add a video.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Village of Brice cracking down on speeders again after 3-year hiatus