SAFE FLEET BLOG

In Part 3 of our stop-arm camera customer success stories we go to Medical Lake, WA to find out about how the school district’s transportation department uses stop-arm camera footage and works with law enforcement to ensure prosecution.

Part 3: School District Works With Law Enforcement to Issue Stop-arm Violation Tickets

Dan Cools
Transportation Director | Medical Lake SD #326
Medical Lake, WA

Dan Cools, Transportation Director in Medical Lake, WA has seen a lot of success since the installation of his first Seon stop-arm camera system in November of 2012.  Medical Lake’s stop-arm cameras were set up to start recording as soon as the stop-arm is deployed.

“Right out of the gate, the video evidence and license plate numbers from two stop-arm passing incidents were turned into local law enforcement and resulted in tickets being issued,” Cools recounted. “The cameras are great at capturing license plate numbers.”

Cools cites a good relationship with local law enforcement as the key to a successful stop-arm camera program. “Our local law enforcement has been really good,” says Cools.  “Now that we have been working together for a while, we just pull the footage, and send a still image of the license plate to them via email.”

On average his exterior stop-arm camera continues to capture two stop-arm violators per week.  When asked about the impact of ticketing on reducing the number of incidents, Cools had this to say: “Washington law specifically dictates that we can’t record the driver without their permission, so they need to acknowledge they were driving at the time of the incident. The difficult part is getting the drivers to admit that.”