Tupelo Traffic Cameras Go Live on Aug. 1

Tupelo was the first city in Mississippi to approve camera enforcement at intersections.

Traffic cameras will go live on Aug. 1 at three Tupelo, Miss. intersections with the possibility that others will be installed in the future, according to city officials.

Motorists photographed running lights at these intersections during the first month of the program will get warnings, which will include images showing the violations caught on camera.

The warnings will be issued – and mailed – to the registered owner of the filmed vehicle.

Starting Sept. 1, they’ll get $75 citations, officials said.

“If you’re going to run them, and you want to see what the picture looks like, that’s the time to do it,” said Bill Kroske, spokesman for Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions, the company running the program.

Of each paid citation, Tupelo will get $40; ATS will get $35.

Tupelo hired ATS earlier this year to study some of the city’s busiest intersections and recommend where cameras should be placed. The study, conducted in March, showed more than a dozen violations at each of the selected intersections in a four-hour period.

The company will study nine other intersections to see if they, too, qualify for camera enforcement, Kroske said in a www.djournal.com article.

If selected for the program, those spots likely would go live in late summer or early fall.

It likely will become the second to have an active program. Columbus leaders earlier this month signed a contract with another Arizona-based company, Redflex. That program is expected to go live by mid-July.

After Columbus and Tupelo, Southaven likely will become the third city with an active program. Its leaders signed a deal with ATS earlier this month, with plans to start monitoring intersections by Sept. 1.

Several other cities – including Jackson, Starkville and Biloxi – are considering similar programs.