If you’ve driven I-65 northbound between exits 284 and 287 recently, you’ve probably noticed new poles going up, along with an electronic sign. Here’s what it is.
ALDOT is in the middle of a statewide rollout of what it calls “advanced corridor management” - new poles carrying dynamic message signs (DMS) and traffic cameras, feeding real-time crash, construction, and delay information into ALDOT’s own ALGO Traffic system. It’s not a one-off. ALDOT has run the identical build, county by county, elsewhere in the state: a $2.5 million project installing DMS and camera poles on I-65 between Priceville and Athens (Morgan/Limestone counties) this spring, using contractor Ozark Safety Services, and a $5.2 million version on I-565 in the Huntsville area. No word yet on when this sign will actually go live.
What it’s not: a Flock camera. Flock Safety’s automated license-plate readers - a real flashpoint nationally, with cameras stolen, vandalized, and deliberately obstructed in multiple states, and an entire crowdsourced map (Deflock) built to track them - are deployed under contract with local police departments, HOAs, and private property owners. Blount County already has them: Oneonta, Blountsville, and Snead police departments all run their own Flock systems, in their own town limits. None of them are anywhere near this stretch of I-65, and no state transportation agency anywhere in the country runs Flock cameras on an interstate. There’s also a physical tell: Flock units are built to blend in - some are now hidden inside speed-reader housings specifically to avoid being vandalized. A large sign displaying text to drivers is the opposite of that design.