Title 31
Motor and Other Vehicles

Chapter 41.3
Automated School-Zone-Speed-Enforcement System Act of 2016

R.I. Gen. Laws § 31-41.3-4

§ 31-41.3-4. Automated school-zone-speed-enforcement system operational requirements and certification.

No automated school-zone-speed-enforcement system shall be used in the state of Rhode Island unless the system has been approved and certified for use in the state by the director of the department of transportation. The director of the department of transportation, in cooperation with the state police, shall require that any automated school-zone-speed-enforcement system approved and certified for use in the state of Rhode Island meets the following requirements:

(1) All automated school-zone-speed-enforcement systems operated under this chapter shall record the speed of vehicles within plus or minus one mile per hour of the actual speed.

(2) All automated school-zone-speed-enforcement systems operated under this chapter shall record at least two (2) photographic images of the vehicle exceeding the speed limit, one of which shall include the license plate attached to the rear of the vehicle.

(3) All automated school-zone-speed-enforcement systems operated under this chapter shall, at the time of violation, imprint upon the photographic images of vehicles exceeding the speed limit:

(i) The date and time of the violation; and

(ii) The identity of the street, or school zone being monitored, and location upon that street, or within that school zone, including the direction of travel and lane of travel; this requirement may be met with code designations; and

(iii) The posted or lawfully designated speed limit for the street or school zone being monitored; and

(iv) The monitored speed of the vehicle identified in the photographic images as exceeding the posted or lawfully designated school zone speed limit; and

(v) The consecutive event number of each photograph taken.

(4) At least one hundred feet (100′) prior to entering an automated school-zone area where a speed-enforcement system is being operated, and on each approach to that area, four (4) signs, each measuring three feet (3′) in height by four feet (4′) in width, shall be erected in locations where the view is unobstructed, warning motorists that they will be entering an area monitored by an automated speed-zone-enforcement system and that violators of speed limitations may be prosecuted. The automated school-zone-speed-enforcement system shall be operational only from seven o’clock a.m. (7:00 a.m.) to six o’clock p.m. (6:00 p.m.) on school days of the promulgated one-hundred-eighty-day (180) school calendar year adopted in the applicable community.

(5) It shall be the vendor’s responsibility to furnish an annual report with all pertinent data to the speaker of the house and the senate president.

History of Section.
P.L. 2016, ch. 164, § 1; P.L. 2016, ch. 165, § 1; P.L. 2018, ch. 316, § 2; P.L. 2018, ch. 353, § 2.