News

Flat Rock spends $10,000 to discourage speeding

Signs that will flash vehicles' speed in the 25 mph zone in the village of Flat Rock are up and will be turned on in the coming weeks.

By Bill Moss, Published: August 5, 2023

FLAT ROCK — Motorists who are flouting the relatively new 25 mph speed limit in the Village of Flat Rock will soon get a visual warning that they're traveling too fast.

New signs that will flash an electronic readout of the speed of cars and trucks are now up in the southbound and northbound lanes of Greenville Highway. The Village of Flat Rock voted months ago to invest more than $10,000 in the signs to discourage speeding.

"A couple of years ago, we got the DOT to lower the speed limit in the center of the village but it was hard to tell how well it was working," Vice Mayor Anne Coletta said. "It took a while to get here and it took a while to schedule an installer but we're up and running and we're pretty excited."

The sign is like the ones the city of Hendersonville installed on Fourth Avenue West in front of the public school system's central office and on Chadwick Avenue, which many drivers use as a cut-through between Greenville and Spartanburg highways.

"The speed signs are currently collecting speed data so we’ll have a baseline to compare once the signs are activated (probably in about 3 weeks)," Coletta added in a message.

The solar-powered signs, manufactured by Marietta, Georgia-based Radarsign, data collection hardware and software and installation cost $10,161.92. The more analog option — radar speed checks and traffic tickets by law enforcement — was considered impractical because neither the sheriff's office or Highway Patrol has the resources to deploy officers regularly in Flat Rock.

"It's pretty nonthreatening and not invasive to the drivers so we'll see how it goes," Coletta said.