Meridian looks to tackle speeders with radar cameras

Published 12:58 pm Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Meridian drivers will want to watch their speed as the city looks to crack down on people driving too fast with new radar cameras.

In a work session Tuesday, the Meridian City Council heard from Joe Payne of Intellisafe about his company’s technology and how it can help law enforcement curb heavy-footed motorists. Payne said the system is already in use in Hattiesburg and other cities throughout the state and is specifically used in school zones.

Payne said his company placed radar monitors near Lamar School and Meridian High to see how many drivers obeyed the slower speed limits during school hours and found 100% of drivers past Lamar and 95% past Meridian High were in excess of the posted speed limit.

“Of the cities we’ve done, that was a new record,” he said.

State law prohibits the use of automatic ticketing systems, but the Intellisafe system is not automatic, Payne said. The radar gun is held and activated by a police officer and records video of speeders along with the data of how fast they were going. It also collects license plate numbers and other identifying information. That data is compiled into a report that the officer will review to either mail out a ticket, a warning or take no action.

Payne said the system means officers will no longer have to chase after speeders to issue them tickets and won’t be tied up with traffic stops while other speeders slip by.

The radar cameras also give the city the power to set a minimum speed, Payne said, with the equipment only recording speeds above that level. For example, the city could set the system to 10 miles per hour over the limit, and anyone driving nine miles per hour over or less would not be picked up.

For those who do get a citation, Payne said they have an option to go through the court system as usual or go through a diversion program. The diversion program costs $230 with $25 going to the state, $75 going to the city and $130 going to Intellisafe. Going through the diversion program also keeps the ticket off a person’s driving record, he said.

Assistant Police Chief Patrick Gale said the cost of a ticket in municipal court varies based on how fast the driver was going.

Intellisafe provides the radar cameras to the city at no cost. Gale said the department may start off small, but the goal is to have one at each of the city’s major school zones.

Mayor Percy Bland said he knew speeding through school zones was a problem and thought the data would come back with around 70% of drivers speeding. Both the city and council members are going to get calls when residents start getting tickets, he said, but the problem needs to be addressed.

“They just told me numbers way out of bounds of what I thought it’d be, and we’re going to have a bunch of people calling about these tickets that they get. You all are going to have people calling about these tickets,” he said. “So what our plan would be is to educate our public, do a marketing campaign and tell them we have some issues with people going way too fast in these school zones during school hours.”