Niceville’s School Zone Camera Campaign Crushes Speeding

In Brief:

🚀 Niceville’s speed cameras around schools have slashed monthly speeding incidents by a staggering 96.9%, from over 41,000 to just 1,271 verified tickets.
📊 Altumint and city officials highlight the success through extended warning periods, public education, and police verification of citations to ensure fair enforcement.
🛡️ The initiative emphasizes pedestrian safety, noting that lower speeds drastically reduce fatality risks in crashes, setting a national gold standard for school zone protection.

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Those speed cameras installed around Ruckel Middle School and Niceville High School have significantly reduced speeding, according to new information from the speed camera vendor and the City of Niceville.

According to the vendor of the camera system, Altumint, about 700 speeding citations were issued in May.

They estimate that, before their speeding camera installation earlier this year on Palm Boulevard and on State Route 285, more than 41,000 drivers exceeded the speed limit by more than 10 miles per hour every month.

At September’s city council meeting, Niceville Police Chief Mark Hayse noted that the number had almost doubled, to 1,271 police-verified issued speeding tickets in August. The drop is a 96.9% reduction in speeding on those two roads since the Altumint audit was performed on behalf of the city on those two roads.

The Rules

The City of Niceville and Altumint participated in a public information campaign earlier this year to raise awareness about the new cameras and what driving behaviours at what times will end up in with a fine.

During times when the school zone flashers are on, school days, drivers exceeding the school zone speed limit posted with the flashing lights (15 miles per hour on Palm and 20 miles per hour on SR 285) by 11 miles per hour or more will get a speeding ticket in the mail.

During the school day, but when the school zone lights are off, drivers can still get a ticket for exceeding the non-flashing light speed limit (25 miles per hour on Palm and 35 miles per hour on SR 285) within the range of the cameras.

Altumit Chief Revenue Officer Jason Norton says the City of Nicevillle serves as a gold standard for what school zone enforcement can look like for cities around the nation.

“Niceville did a great job with public information and education campaign. That’s the cornerstone of our program,” Norton said.

Norton added that Altumint and the City agreed to extend the warning period from 30 days to 60 days to ensure people knew not to speed in the zone when the new school year began in August.

He added that survivability in a crash is another reason they believe in their speed cameras. After all, slower cars cause less fatal accidents with pedestrians. The US Department of Transportation says that, “the risk of a pedestrian crash fatality is estimated to increase from 5 percent to 45 percent when speed increases from 20 to 30 mph; the risk increases to 85 percent when speed reaches 40 mph.”