Skip to main content

City achieves zero fatality 25-year milestone

For the first time in 25 years, no deaths occurred as the result of a traffic crash in Jackson, Tennessee, the city announced at a news conference yesterday.
February 2, 2012 Read time: 2 mins

For the first time in 25 years, no deaths occurred as the result of a traffic crash in Jackson, Tennessee, the city announced at a news conference yesterday. In 2006, the year the Jackson Police Department began using 17 American Traffic Solutions’ (ATS) technology-based systems to enforce traffic laws, 12 people were killed. In 2007 the number was reduced by half to six and halved again to three in 2008. Last year there were no fatalities due to traffic collisions.

According to Police Chief, Gill Kendrick, “The Jackson Police Department would like very much to offer both thanks and congratulations to the people of Jackson on this accomplishment. Certainly the red-light cameras and the speed van are not entirely responsible for the decrease. It takes the support of Judge Blake Anderson, who has made safer roadways a priority at City Court. It takes the work done by the engineering department, which has made improvements to roadways that enhance safety. Mostly, it takes the efforts of drivers to be more cognisant of safety each and every time they get in a vehicle.”

Kendrick continued, “People sometimes criticise the red-light cameras and speed van. Please keep in mind that we are not asking citizens to do anything new. We are just asking citizens to stop at red lights and obey the speed limit. Those who simply obey the traffic laws will never participate in the photo safety programme. To ensure the safety of the citizens of Jackson, the officers of the Jackson Police Department will continue their intensive efforts to remove impaired drivers from the roadways. Because speeding, running red lights and non-compliance with the safety belt and child restraint laws place people in danger, these laws will continue to be vigorously enforced as well.”

ATS has been serving the City of Jackson with intersection safety cameras since July 2006. The speed van was added in September 2009. Red-light cameras are located at four intersections in the city while the van deploys at different locations throughout the city to discourage drivers from speeding.

Related Content

  • January 23, 2013
    Florida cities expand red light cameras
    West Palm Beach is to significantly expand its red-light camera program in 2013 after commissioners approved plans to install cameras at twenty-five new intersections, bringing the number of intersections equipped to catch drivers who illegally run red lights to thirty-two. The move comes despite a recent city police report that tracked five of the existing seven red-light cameras and found crashes nearly doubled in those locations between February 2011 and January 2013, to 66 from 36. Police Chief Vince De
  • February 17, 2020
    AAA report: caught red-handed
    Using published crash statistics, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s report found that 939 people were killed in red-light running crashes in 2017 – a rise of 28% since 2012. Moreover, more than a quarter (28%) of crash deaths at signalised intersections “are the result of a driver running through a red light”.
  • November 7, 2014
    Houston Police: increase in crashes when red-light safety cameras removed
    A new report shows a 30 per cent increase in fatal traffic collisions and a 117 per cent increase in total traffic crashes at 51 intersections in Houston where red-light safety cameras once stood. New figures from the Houston Police Department released by the National Coalition for Safer Roads (NCSR) show total traffic collisions more than doubled from 4,147 in 2006-2010 when cameras were in use to 8,984 in 2010-2014, when cameras were not in operation. The city ended its red-light safety camera program
  • November 4, 2021
    USDoT responds to death crash 'crisis' on roads 
    'First-ever' national safety-first roadway strategy comes as 20,160 die in first half of 2021