BUFFALO, N.Y. — After a lot of discussion in the City of Buffalo, parts of the city's school speed zone camera program have gone live.
Outside two schools Wednesday, flashing beacons were alerting drivers to slow down. Drivers who failed to do so likely will get a $50 ticket in the mail.
There are 10 schools that have speed zone cameras.
But the only ones that have cameras and flashing beacons are Canisius High on Delaware Avenue and the Makowski Early Childhood Center on Jefferson Avenue.
As parts of the program have gotten the green light, there are questions about when other schools could go live. For instance, how accurate are the cameras?
As the speed zones outside Canisius High and the Makowski School went into effect, city officials say drivers have been taking notice.
"We are seeing speeding pass those two school locations where cameras are operational, where flashing beacons are operational, go way down," said Mayor Byron Brown.
We saw a lot of people slowing down. But occasionally, we saw some drivers who probably will get a $50 ticket in the mail.
Mayor Brown's Administration has said all along, this is not about taking more of your money.
"This is about the safety of children going to school in the City of Buffalo," Brown said.
It appears that enforcement during the entire school day will remain.
"We believe if the cameras are not operational the entire day, people will not build up the habit of slowing down when they drive pass our schools," Brown said.
There are 10 school speed zones, and as we've reported, only two of them are in effect.
The other eight have cameras that are taking pictures of speeding drivers, but you won't get a ticket until the beacons there have not been turned on.
"We're just doing our final checks to make sure that operationally the cameras the beacons everything is the way we want it and we will be announcing as the mayor said on a rolling basis," said Kevin Helfer, Buffalo's parking commissioner.
If a speeding driver is within traffic, how does the camera know that that car is speeding?
"The cameras are incredibly sophisticated, and they are able to differentiate up to six lanes of traffic," Helfer said. "Anyone that gets a violation, when they get their notice in the mail, the notice of violation at the bottom, it will tell them how to access and see exactly what happened."
But the city admits they expect some errors.
"Sometimes people with their license plate have brackets that go over it. We had an instance the other day where people's plates had an 'E,' the camera read, or we read it, as an 'F,' because it was just covering it a little. That's going to happen, as the mayor said, one out of every 300, 400 events," Helfer said.
Helfer says there are several ways to challenge a school zone speeding ticket. You can call the vendor, the phone number will be on the ticket, you can go on the city's website to fight it, or you can plead not guilty in writing and a hearing will be scheduled.
School speed zones in Buffalo, so far, are located outside these schools:
Stanley Makowski Early Childhood, Canisius High, McKinley High, Hutchinson Tech, Leonardo Da Vinci School, Frederick Law Olmsted, West Hertel Academy, Westminster Community Charter School, the William J. Grabiarz school and the Arthur O. Eve school.