Free Trail Cam Loan For Neighbors Invaded By Trucks: Document Volume & Identities

As Manhattan residents for 16 years who have raised three kids here, we too are surveying with dismay the rapid rise in truck traffic and congestion caused by the freight centers which have opened so far. And we all know it's just begun.
Even worse, we are now hearing reports from friends and neighbors that large numbers of semi's are "cutting through" local residential roads to avoid this new congestion. They roar past groups of school children waiting for their buses—in wanton disregard for speed and weight limits. 

Below: Rural Texas county roads are suffering from all the oil and gas truck traffic, prompting demands for action by lawmakers. From The Texas Tribune.

One friend confided she counted 34 in one day travelling down her 12 ton weight limit road. Another has seen them heading to and fro on hers with it's single lane bridge. It goes without saying that this is way beyond quality of life—this puts our children and residents at risk in everyday life: waiting for the school bus, driving to and from home. Previously desirable properties on roads like Delaney, Baker & Smith will plummet in value. Our roads will be in ruins after a winter or two. And the repair bill, well, that's on us—they're our roads after all. Obviously, this is already illegal. Trucks pulled over by police are a common sight—they clearly are doing their best to enforce the law. But they can't be everywhere, and the 18 wheel onslaught continues. 
Our community has banded together admirably to fend off mega-threats like Northpoint, but the unfortunate reality is that instead of being consumed in one bite by an apex predator, we are being nibbled a piece at a time by smaller scavengers. The result will be the same, and we're already seeing it start. 

These 20-megapixel Moultrie M-50 Trail Cams, with 80' sensor range, IR flash, and .3 second trigger are available on loan to local residents to document illegal truck traffic. Contact us for more info.

At GCG, we don't know what the big-picture solutions are, but we do have an idea we believe is a step in the right direction: Document this. Document how many trucks are illegally taking our roads each day. Document, if possible, their drivers, license plates or other identifying information. Then, release that information—to enforcement agencies, police departments and the public. If this can be empirically proven to be the problem that it anecdotally appears to be, there must be some recourse.
To help our neighbors in this effort, we ordered some high-quality trail cameras that we will loan out for documenting this truck traffic. These are 20-megapixel resolution, 1080p HD video, with an Infrared flash range of 100 feet, 80 foot sensor range and a .3 second trigger time. We expect them to reliably capture images of not only the truck traffic, but also clear identifying information--license plate numbers, drivers, or at least company names depending on placement options. We'll run trials starting September 7th on a local road. Every two weeks, we'll collect all the footage into a central database and move the cameras to other locations as needed. This information will be publicly available to anyone who asks, and will be passed along to enforcement agencies as appropriate. If it makes sense, we'll post on the web as well.
Please contact us if you would like a camera to set up near your home, or if you are part of group that could use the information we gather. We're happy to help.
​     —Jeffrey & Paula Gibbs 
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