Ringgold PD deploys newly purchased LIDAR equipment to combat speeding
After receiving a traffic safety grant in late 2018, the Ringgold Police Department now has new LIDAR equipment in place to help combat the growing speeding issues in town.
In October, Ringgold PD received an $8,400 grant from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety (GOHS) to help the agency further its ongoing efforts to reduce traffic accidents related to speeding and distracted driving.
Then, in November, the department decided to spend $6,485 of that money to purchase three new LIDAR guns.
“We bought three in total with what we received from GOHS,” Captain Chris Faulk said.
Lately, the department’s focus has been on the excessive speeding going on along I-75 in the construction zone between exits 348 and 345.
“We’ve put a lot of emphasis on the interstate this year, especially because of the construction zone,” said Chief Dan Bilbrey. “The more visible you are out there, the more effective you’re going to be in getting traffic slowed down.”
As for the in-town focus, both Chief Bilbrey and Captain Faulk said Tennessee Street has been a big area of concern recently.
“Tennessee Street is where we get most of our complaints about speeding from residents,” Faulk said.
Speeders have a habit of coming off Ooltewah-ringgold Road and into town on Tennessee Street where there’s a school zone for Ringgold Middle, residential areas, and where street runs right into the business district in the heart of downtown.
Faulk also said speeding numbers have increased over the course of the past three years within the city.
“In 2016, of all our speeding citations, 4.07 percent of those were at speeds of 20 mph or more above the speed limit,” Faulk explained. “In 2017, that number rose to 17.05 percent, and in May of 2018, those numbers had risen to 40.93 percent through the first half of 2018. In the middle of May we found that we were at 40.93 percent of speeding citations being over 20 mph or more for the first half of the year.”
Based on the statistics from over the past couple of years, the speeding has gone down overall, but the speeding that does occur is excessive.
“From 2016 to 2017 the department saw roughly a 21-percent decrease in speeding overall, but with the significant increase in speeding that was 20 mph or more over the speed limit from, which jumped from the 4.07-percent (2016) to 17.05-percent (2017), and subsequently the 40.93-percent number (first half of 2018).
Chief Bilbrey says he hopes the new equipment and a stronger emphasis on the problem areas will help remedy the issues moving forward.
“They LIDAR are great tools for us and we’re hoping it will help with the enforcement of speeding in our city,” Bilbrey said.
Dewayne Brown has been promoted to the rank of commander with the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force, effective Feb. 1.
Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson, chairman of the Drug Task Force control board, made the announcement Tuesday, Feb. 5. The control met the previous week and voted to name Brown as the commander.