Cape CopCast
Welcome to "The Cape CopCast," the official podcast of the Cape Coral Police Department.
Hosted by Officer Mercedes Simonds, and Lisa Greenberg from our Public Affairs team, this podcast dives into the heart of Cape Coral PD's public safety, community initiatives, and the inner workings of our police department. Each episode brings you insightful discussions, interviews with key community figures, and expert advice on safety.
Cape CopCast
Chief's Chat 22: A Reintroduction to RedSpeed School Zone Cameras
School is almost back in session and the RedSpeed school zone cameras will be rolling!
Join hosts Lisa Greenberg and Officer Mercedes Simonds as they welcome Chief Sizemore for a straightforward conversation about the RedSpeed school zone cameras returning on August 11th.
Think of this as your essential back-to-school refresher – except instead of school supplies and new clothes, we're talking about keeping kids safe on their way to class. Chief Sizemore breaks down exactly how the program works with crystal clarity: "Nothing changes from before, except there's cameras to capture the speed. That's it." When those yellow lights are flashing, it's 20 mph. During regular school hours, it's the standard posted speed limit. Simple as that.
The team addresses common questions and misconceptions head-on. No, this isn't a revenue scheme (they'd prefer zero tickets). Yes, there's a 10 mph buffer before violations trigger. And drivers have options when they receive a notice: pay the $100 fine, contest it, or identify another driver. The worst choice? Ignoring it, which escalates to a formal citation with potential license points after 30 days.
Beyond the mechanics, the conversation reveals the human stakes. Chief Sizemore shares sobering reminders of past tragedies involving students and how speeding directly correlates to crash probability. The program aims to modify driver behavior and create safer streets for everyone – not just students, but all Cape Coral residents.
Ready for the new school year? Slow down, watch for flashing lights, and remember that patience is essential during those first chaotic weeks of school traffic. Visit CapeCops.com for comprehensive FAQs and additional resources to navigate the RedSpeed program. Your attention behind the wheel could save a life – and that's what this is all about.
Welcome back to another episode of the Cape Cop cast Chiefs Chat Edition. I'm one of your hosts, Lisa Greenberg.
Speaker 2:And I'm Officer Mercedes Simons. Today we have Chief Sizemore in the house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good morning.
Speaker 2:We are going to talk a little bit about Red Speed today. We've obviously had a lot of questions from our community and we just want to make sure that everybody feels comfortable. We go into everything and you feel like really set and ready to go. You know what the rules and regulations are. But here's the secret Basically nothing changes from before, except there's cameras to capture the speed.
Speaker 3:That's it. We're doing nothing above what you learned in driver's ed.
Speaker 1:Right and school's going back into session in a little over a week. So we want to kind of start now with getting the community questions answered. We want to remind you now so that you can put the things that should really already be in practice when you're on the road really into practice so that when the cameras are activated, the red speed school zones are activated, you are ready to go, Ready to go. You already know what to do.
Speaker 3:It's a theme, right, school's coming back, summer's over, we're back together. Our little summer break is over and when you're in the mood already for lists, right, you need all the school supplies, you need school clothes, you need to get back on that routine. This is just another part of that back to school list. So if you think of it in those terms, it's really not anything crazy. And, like you guys have said, we're not covering any new ground from what you learned when you were riding next to your parents, learning how to drive in a parking lot or in driver's ed. It's about paying attention, situational awareness and keeping everybody safe Simple.
Speaker 1:Following the law Really, I mean we had a With a grace period.
Speaker 1:Right we're giving you a little extra, we're helping you a little bit, but we did a media town hall yesterday or a couple days ago and we talked about really nothing has changed. It's when you're driving, you're checking your surroundings. If you see blinking, flashing lights, you should have already anyway been abiding by what that means, which is slower speed limits. It's a 20 mile per hour school zone. We go that speed limit. When it's not blinking, we go the posted regular speed limit. These are things that should have already been in place and now we just have the technology essentially to capture when people aren't following the law.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. I think the biggest thing that we've seen people be confused over is it continues throughout the day. The cameras do so. It's 30 minutes before school when the lights are flashing, but even when the lights are not flashing during the day, speed is being captured on the cameras and I think that's people's biggest issue that they perhaps don't understand.
Speaker 3:This is the easiest way I could do it. So let's just say don't quote me on these times, I'm just going to use times. So Lisa Greenberg Elementary School starts at 8 o'clock and runs till 3 o'clock. Right, it's a half hour before, so 7.30. The camera starts all the way till 3.30, a half hour after, so that's your first step. The camera is operating 30 minutes before, all the way through the day to the end of school, and 30 minutes after. That's the duration. Good, good, then, within that line, that linear time graph, it's the speed limit. What speed limit? Ah, if the lights are blinking at the beginning and the end, that's 20 miles an hour. Lights are blinking at the beginning and the end, that's 20 miles an hour. So if you're driving, you should be entering a school zone at or around the speed limit. Is what we're hoping for. We want you to be at the speed limit or under. But you even have a little bit of grace. So you're driving 45, and then you get close to LGE Lisa Greenberg.
Speaker 1:Elementary.
Speaker 3:You see the blinking lights, that means 20 Greenberg Elementary. You see the blinking lights, that means 20 miles an hour and there's blinking lights. There's a sign that says you're entering a school zone. Get down to 20 miles an hour. You actually have up to 10 miles an hour over. We don't recommend that, but that's the latitude that we give you and you drive through and there's a sign that says end school zone and then you resume the 45 miles an hour once you leave the shadow of LGE.
Speaker 3:If it's during the school day, remember that linear graph. So 7.30 because it's a half hour before to 3.30, half hour after, if it's in that time frame of during the day and the lights are not blinking. So let's say you go through around lunchtime, it's not 20 because they're not blinking. It reverts back to the normal speed limit which, like we talked about in the beginning, you should be doing anyway. So we're not reinventing speed limits, we're not changing speed limits. It's the regular speed, posted speed, the lowered speed for school zones. That is not new, that's it.
Speaker 3:So if you're approaching and let's look at it from a you perspective, right, you live in your neighborhood, you know what is around your house or your commute, there could be a traffic light that you encounter every day that it's going to take me two cycles to get through because it's busy. Or there's a man who walks his dog every day. I know he's going to be out there, I got to be careful of that. Or there's somebody who pushes a loved one in a wheelchair. I have to be a little bit mindful. You start to know your routine. Well, you put the school that you drive past into your routine and when you're approaching and you see the lights, just automatically think like you always have 20 miles an hour. It's not designed to get the regular Joe or Jane who are driving to school and see it. They slow down to 20. Their car's not 100% calibrated and they're doing 23.
Speaker 1:Right, you're good.
Speaker 3:It's the person that's doing 57 through that 20, which has happened, and during the regular school day, when it goes back up to 45, we've had people almost at 100 miles an hour through there. I don't think any excuse is warranted for something like that. But getting back to our scenario, you know your situational awareness Pay attention to the lights, pay attention to people on the road, pay attention to the signs that tell you that you're entering and then pay attention to the ones that tell you that you're exiting. There are a couple of school zones that are unique in that they're longer, and Skyline Boulevard is one in particular because there are three campuses within like 100 yards of each other, if you're looking downward from a map. So therefore the length of the school zone is a little bit longer. I think that one crosses over Trafalgar, but there's a sign that says you've entered it and until you see that sign that you've exited it, you're in it. If it's flashing lights, it's 20. That could be a little bit of a long stretch, but that's what it is. If it's not, if it's during the regular school day, but not blinking, it's 45. You can go 10 over and still be fine, and then when you exit. That that doesn't mean really step on it and go 20 over because you're free.
Speaker 3:We want traffic safety and good behavior modification through this program and, like you said earlier, mercedes, it just gives us a tool to capture that. It's a force multiplier. People have asked why don't you just have officers in those school zones? We have, we do. And now what this does? This technology because of the statute, the law change enables us to use that, so those same officers can then go to other locations and do the same function of traffic. So it's a force multiplier, if you will.
Speaker 1:Right. Those officers can now go to an intersection on Del Prado that may not be a school zone but sees a lot of speeding or other traffic issues. So it allows us to broaden our traffic enforcement. And you know, just being frank here when we talk about this conversation, obviously the goal here is overall. We want the kids to be safe, we want behavior to be changed and if we saw no tickets come from this and no violations and we made no money, that would be the goal.
Speaker 3:So anyone that's a win again.
Speaker 1:To be frank, anyone who is complaining about this is telling us that they're upset that they are getting caught for going more than 10 miles over the speed limit in a school zone in a school zone that's one of the things that I that I have heard not directly, but you see it like on the news or anecdotally that it's a cash grab.
Speaker 3:I can tell you that it's not. I don't want it. I don't. I don't want the cash, I want the safety. Um, so if, if we could do a challenge where we whittle these violations down to zero, that would be outstanding, because that just means that people are complying.
Speaker 3:And when you back out a little bit and look at the situation and you drive through these school zones, there's a lot of kids that are walking and riding bikes. And in this city, if you look around when you're driving, if you're new to Cape Coral or you forgot, you see these benches that are by all these bus stops. And that comes from a young lady, a girl, several years ago, layla, and she was hit and killed by a driver when she was on her way to the bus stop. So we've had kids that have been clipped on their bicycle. We've had kids that are walking across the street that have gotten hit, and it's just one more way to get you to slow down, increase your reaction time and really get your mind around. Man, there's a lot of kids here and I don't see them, but everybody says I didn't see them when they have a tragedy like that. So it's just giving you that opportunity. Like I said, hopefully we don't make any cash on the thing, but let's talk about that.
Speaker 3:What happens if you get a violation? Right, you're going to receive it in the mail. So I'm driving, I'm not paying attention, or I'm in a different, I'm running an errand, so I'm on a different, I'm running an errand, so I'm on a different part of my routine, because there's what 17 of these throughout the city. So if I make a mistake and I receive one, it's going to have a picture of me going through it with my tag. If it was me. I have a couple of options. I can pay it's $100. We'll talk about where that goes. Couple of options I can pay it's $100. We'll talk about where that goes. I can say absolutely no way I'm going to exercise my right to go contest this violation, absolutely. You can elect a hearing and you can go plead your case to a magistrate, which is like a judge in a civil-type hearing. So you get to go talk to the judge and say, nope, that's not what happened, and then you can plead your case. Or well, that's my car, I'm the registered owner, but my wife was driving that. So I talked to my wife hey, were you driving? And then it's a decision as a family I can just pay it or I can put on the violation that you get an affidavit that it wasn't me, it was my wife, send it back. They will reissue the violation to the driver. Somebody will be held accountable for it.
Speaker 3:The last thing that's really not preferred is if you do nothing and doing nothing is not an option. If you do nothing with it, you're like, ah, I'll get to it, or this is nonsense and, like the movies, you ball it up and throw it away In 30 days. If you haven't either elected to contest it and go to a hearing or pay it or complete an affidavit that says it wasn't me, it's going to get transferred into a uniform traffic citation or UTC. What a UTC is is a ticket, the same thing that if an officer pulled you over and it goes through the county clerk of courts. That could spell trouble because you could open yourself up to points. As they stand Now, there's no points on your license. You are subject to that and it's a higher fine and it could go into suspension of your license if you don't address it. So doing nothing is probably the worst option that you could take. So it's a pretty simple process with that. And then what were some of the other questions? Where does the money go?
Speaker 1:Where does it go?
Speaker 3:Okay, so you want to take part of that. Where does it go?
Speaker 2:Where does my?
Speaker 3:money go.
Speaker 2:I think we get $39 out of every $100. And that goes specifically back into traffic enforcement, traffic safety. There's a portion that goes to the state, there's a portion that goes to the school crossing guards, I think, in the different school zones the school district, the school district.
Speaker 3:So let's talk about two of those, the ones that come back to us when it comes back to the city the city. In the statute that allowed this law or enacted this law, it spells out when it comes back, it has to go towards law enforcement and traffic safety stuff. I can tell you I'm committed to reinvesting this back into traffic safety More equipment, more radars, more laser vehicles Depending upon how much there is, there could be more traffic officers. We have paid for the administration of this program because it takes manpower to actually run it. That's covered.
Speaker 3:And then school crossing guards we contract out to an employment company that does school crossing guards. They do it all over the state and, like anything else, their labor costs have risen. It's a better economical bang for your buck, for the taxpayer, for us in budgeting to outsource that role. Well, these fees can be and will be, applied to that contract so that those monies that would have been budgeted or allocated over there can be redirected into more traffic safety things. So we are 100% investing back into the business for our share of it and our business is traffic safety.
Speaker 1:Right, and for anyone who, like you said you've anecdotally heard from one of the news, people yesterday or a couple of days ago said we have people who are saying this is just a cash grab. What do you have to say about that? We wouldn't be sitting here doing a podcast. We wouldn't be sitting here posting on social media about it, warning people, reminding people. We wouldn't be having a media town hall and taking their questions and asking them to please remind the public that this is going back into effect on August 11th. We wouldn't be putting out community messaging, we wouldn't be having signs about it If this was some sort of money grab, wouldn't we want to be like shh, let's make as much money as possible and not tell people what we're doing out here. So the fact that we are literally I guess not literally figuratively shouting at everyone at the top of our lungs, this is happening.
Speaker 3:You're almost literally yelling.
Speaker 1:I know Well, you should have seen me a couple of days ago. I can get pretty fired up about this. You're right, it's not a secret. It's not a secret.
Speaker 3:It's very transparent. It's out in the open. We're telling you that this program is here because I'm rooting for you to beat it. Beat the system, drive the speed limit, be safe, laugh every time you go through you didn't get me.
Speaker 2:That's what I want. I think that's the not funny part. But the funny part that we've seen about it is people are trying to figure it out so that they can figure out when they can speed and when they can't stop. Just go the speed limit, that's it.
Speaker 3:I did hear that there was a neighborhood where a neighbor said that people are driving on parallel side streets to be able to beat it.
Speaker 3:That's kind of silly to me because those kids that end up in the school zone have originated from somewhere and it may be those side streets. So you're not really beating the system, you're potentially endangering those kids. But to be able to beat a I don't know eighth of a mile strip of 20 miles an hour, that's silly During the day. If you're doing it to be able to go 45, right that's. Most of the streets are 45. So 56 and above, you're going out of your way to be able to go 11, 12, 20 over.
Speaker 2:Right, you're not even making up time on the side streets. That's what I'm saying. That's the part that's ridiculous to me. How fast are you going?
Speaker 3:I'm rooting for people to do it right and I'm not rooting for that.
Speaker 1:If you don't want to give us your money, we're not forcing you.
Speaker 2:Just follow the law.
Speaker 3:It's about safety. Slow it down.
Speaker 2:And guess what, if we get complaints that there are a lot of people speeding on side streets, we still have officers to send over to that area to enforce the side streets too. But don't make us do that. That's an absolute waste of resources, just slow down.
Speaker 3:It's for you. I know somebody in this is back when I was in school. So I know a classmate who in the morning was driving to school it was dark, you know, because the way the times change and everything and was driving a little bit too fast and hit a child and it really obviously it ruined that family's life, but the consequences emotionally for her it was devastating and I'm sure that's something that she lives with every day. And she was just a teen driver. So it there are serious stakes, you know, serious stakes, not just for the child, which should be enough, but for you.
Speaker 3:You don't want to go through something like that. It's absolutely horrific to be a party to that. So it's just one more tool. We want to keep it light, don't want to preach to people, that's a heavy topic, but those are the stakes that we have is that it just takes one split second and, let's be honest, the kids are not always paying attention. They're on their devices, they have their earbuds in, they're on electric scooters, they're giving all kinds of challenges for us to be able to do it safely. So by going a little bit slower you can kind of help a kid who's learning how to navigate the world.
Speaker 1:Right and not to mention. Obviously, this is to keep the kids safe, but we could all sit here and think of several people we know who've been impacted by a traffic crash, whether they were in a crash themselves, whether their friend was in a crash, or whether they lost someone in a crash or someone they know had serious injuries in a crash. And speeding directly correlates to the probability of a crash. So this is not just protecting kids who are walking, kids who are on their bike. This is protecting you as a driver as well, and the other drivers around you, because it's holding you accountable to going the speed limit and providing a quote, unquote punishment for not going the speed limit, which will alter the driver's behaviors, which will ultimately keep you safer on the road.
Speaker 3:We can show it in the data that when people slow down and when education is the first step and education dovetails into enforcement, which ultimately both of those, either independently or together, will change driver behavior. And if that driver behavior is changed for the better, then our crashes go down, our injury and fatality crashes go down. And even absent a school zone. If you look at our serious crashes, our traffic homicide investigations that we have, a great majority of them are speed-related. There's impaired drivers as well, but speed is a big factor. So if it gets your mindset behind the wheel a little bit safer here in these areas, we're hopeful too that that might translate out into other areas and other times of the day and night day or night that will make you a little bit safer. So key takeaways for me, nothing's changed here.
Speaker 3:You're driving, go the speed limit or pretty close to it. Keep an eye on your surroundings. If you enter a school zone and the lights are flashing, it's 20. Right, slow down. If it's during the school day and the lights are not flashing, it's the regular speed limit. But the cheat code if you're doing this is if you hover around the posted speed limit as your default, you're never going to encounter red speed. You're never going to get one of those funny things in the mail and you're never going to join that exclusive club of receiving one of those violations. And that's what we want. We were looking for that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And if you have any questions and you're listening to this or watching this that we didn't address if you go to CapeCopscom, right on the homepage, we have a button you can click that says Red Speed Cameras. That's where all of our frequently asked questions are. And if, for some reason, I think we've done a pretty good job of tailoring it to the questions we've received in our area but if, for some reason, your question is not answered on there like, of course, if you received a violation and you have questions about your violation specifically we aren't going to have those answers. The number for Red Speed is right there on that page for you to call them up and get those questions answered 100%.
Speaker 3:You two, I'll give you credit. You've really curated that FAQ section on the website for Cape Coral-based questions. We launched this thing at the end of the school year last year. There are stock FAQs provided by the company Redspeed, but we have taken it further and, of the data that we've gotten based on the questions, we've tailored it. So almost every single question that you could have is right there in plain English. Even I can understand it. And then anything beyond that prominently displayed is the number to Red Speed. They're the subject matter experts in any technical questions that are beyond what's already put on CapeCopscom. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's the goal. The goal is to have absolutely zero citations that we have come in. That's the goal, and we need your help, the community's help, to be able to do that. That's it. That's it. Simple stuff, all right? Well, anything help, the community's help to be able to do that, that's it.
Speaker 3:That's it, simple stuff All right.
Speaker 1:Well, anything else Chief?
Speaker 3:No, that's it.
Speaker 1:Good to be back.
Speaker 3:Good to have the gang back together.
Speaker 1:Yes, summer break is over.
Speaker 3:Doesn't feel like it, it's almost over.
Speaker 2:We have a couple more weeks, a couple more weeks.
Speaker 1:That's true.
Speaker 2:August 11th is is when all of the cameras will be back up and operational. There were a couple that were on here and there for summer school, but now all the ones listed on our website, if you go to the Red Speed FAQ, will be operational again.
Speaker 3:Give me 10 seconds to not just Red Speed, but the first day of school brings. Oh yeah, car line is back in my neighborhood. There's going to be a lot of cars in the beginning dropping off and then in the afternoon and there's people that start stacking up early and, just so you know, the campuses are secure. So if you get there, if LGE lets out at three and you get mom, dad, grandma, grandpa showing up to pick somebody up at I don't know 2.15 to line up, the campus is locked. They can't get in. So they can go up to the gate. They are allowed to start queuing in the road and they will queue.
Speaker 1:They will queue, so be ready for that and it will back up.
Speaker 3:That is allowed. It's a little slow the first week or two of school. The schools are getting used to that flow Again. There's new staff at the school, there's new students there's, there's, there's a lot of new. So, trust me, every year almost 30 years I've seen it by the second week of school. It's routine, it's smooth, it flies. But the first two weeks you're like this is absolutely what in the world. So there's a lot coming on August 11th and we have promotional testing that day, so it'll be a buzz in here too. Oh boy, as a tease for another Kip Cop test.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, yeah. So just be patient, everyone be patient. We say it every year Just be patient. Well, thank you, chief, you got it.
Speaker 3:Thank you, ladies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you Everybody out there. Slow down and stay safe.
Speaker 3:We'll see you next time. Have a great weekend.
