Caddo Parish will soon contract with Blue Line Solutions to enforce speed laws on parish roads. This effort will be coordinated with Caddo Sheriff Henry Whitehorn in the selection of the roads to be monitored. This will be a six month trial program.
Blue Line Solutions has the contract with the City of Shreveport to enforce speed limits at Caddo Parish schools in the city limits. This program encountered many challenges in its first months of operation.
Here are some of the problems encountered by residents and the City of Shreveport with Blue Line Solutions:
1. Signage and flashing lights were not timely installed by Blue Line--it is not known if the parish roads will have signage on Blue Line speed monitoring.
2. Citations issued by Blue Line identified the vehicle by its license plate and cited the vehicle owner without proof of who actually was driving the vehicle at the time of the speed violation.
3. Blue Line failed to open an office in Shreveport as required by the contract with the City.
4. The toll-free number listed on the citations for Blue Line was usually not answered and voice messages by callers were rarely returned.
5. Blue Line was slow in returning moneys paid by citizens for citations when it was determined that the citation was in error.
6. Blue Line was delinquent in remitting to the City of Shreveport its portions of the collected fines with appropriate accountings.
The City of Shreveport established a special traffic court for Blue Line citations to provide for citizen appeals from the citations. Presumably the Parish will do likewise.
Nationwide Blue Line has a spotty reputation for administration of speed camera programs. The Shreveport experience has confirmed many of these deficiencies. Caddo Parish can avoid many of these with a tightly drawn performance contract with Blue Line.