County officials urge action on solar traffic safety concerns

Information shared at the Pulaski County Commissioners meeting on Nov. 17 indicated that county officials are becoming increasingly concerned with traffic safety on solar roads. The conversation started with updates on the solar projects from Timothy Hollandsworth from VS Engineering, the county’s hired professional civil engineering consulting firm. Before going into regular updates, Hollandsworth reported on two traffic accidents that occurred recently. He said they received a report of a semi in the ditch near CR 700 W. and CR 200 N. No injuries were reported and the traffic management crews were mobilized immediately. Secondly, he said they received confirmation of a separate accident at SR 39 and CR 550 S. involving two of the developer's employees. Hollandsworth advised that both parties were in their personal vehicles on their way to work at the time of the accident. No other vehicles were involved. Both individuals were life-lined to area hospitals. He said this is the extent of the information they have at this time and they will continue to monitor the situation. Commissioner Jenny Knebel asked Hollandsworth if every vehicle that goes through the intersections that have Flock cameras installed at them are looked at by VS Engineering. Hollandsworth replied that the cameras start recording upon motion, so each vehicle is recorded. VS then downloads all the video footage - and, outside of normal pick-up trucks - any semis, dump trucks, tractor trailers or anything larger than standard vehicles are being fined. Hollandsworth added that the fining process is taking some time due to VS having to look through thousands of photos per week to verify the violations.