The Pearl River County School District began ticketing cars on campus with out-of-state tags on Friday.

PRC School District Superintendent Dennis Penton said in a phone interview Saturday that the first day of the ticketing went well, with three tickets being written for out-of-state tags.

“We suspect there was a lot of adjustment after people heard we were going to be writing the tickets, but I think it went well,” Penton said.

Penton believes that once people heard tickets were going to be issued that they made other arrangements for vehicles to bring on campus.

“I suspect there was some vehicle borrowing. We did not see nearly the number of out-of-state tags that are normally on campus,” Penton said.

Penton also acknowledged that there are cars on campus with out-of-state tags that are legitimate, such as those with company cars that are registered in another state and vehicles with military tags. Once the legitimate tags have been verified, Penton said, notations will be made in order to avoid detaining those vehicles again.

“Our security guys will make notes once they have verified a legitimate out-of-state tag, and share it with the others. That way we can avoid stopping those people repeatedly,” Penton said.

The tickets that are being issued are standard uniform citations that are turned into the justice court, just like a ticket issued by the sheriff’s department. Campus security officers are encouraged to issue the citations anytime they see someone on campus that is breaking the law.

“The main goal of these tickets is not to be writing tickets, but to encourage people to get the proper tags. … People have 30 days after moving in to get their tags, so there is a grace period … . This is just a means to an end to get people to obey the law,” Penton said.