ATLANTA – Automated school zone speed cameras: A good way to slow traffic around kids? Or a cash grab?
With the next session of the Georgia Legislature right around the corner, that debate is about to pick up again, with one lawmaker already announcing plans to put speed cameras on the chopping block.
Why you should care: Georgia currently allows school zone speed limits to be enforced by machines, with first violations usually costing $75 to $80 and subsequent citations costing about $125 to $130.
The camera systems, set up along roadways near schools throughout the state, record passing drivers, photograph speeders, and send citations in the mail. They generate millions of dollars in revenue for local governments, schools and private camera companies – who argue the cameras slow down traffic and keep children, parents and teachers safe.
But they also make a lot of taxpayers furious, and state lawmakers have been hearing complaints for years.
Earlier this year, there were two proposals involving school zone cameras at the Georgia capitol. Both died with the end of the legislative session in March.
One would have reformed how the cameras operate – restricting times when tickets can be issued, requiring uniform signage, and barring cameras companies from making money on a per-ticket basis.
The other proposal, introduced by now-retired state Rep. Clay Pirkle, of south Georgia, would have shut the cameras down entirely.
It’s that second idea, killing them, that’s already being revived.
State Rep. Dale Washburn, R-Macon, told the I-Team he’ll pick up next year where Pirkle left off.
“This is designed to entrap,” Washburn said of the camera systems. “It is designed to rake in vast sums of money and is wrong. And it’s time for us to do something to protect the citizens of Georgia from this.”
Local perspective: While Washburn calls the systems entrapment, some drivers call them downright confusing.
Every morning, Denise Atkins passed through Stone Hogan Connector Road, in southwest Atlanta, on her way to work. The drive took her past a set of cameras as she rounded a corner near Continental Colony Elementary School.
Then one day, she got a surprise at home: A citation for going 36 in a 25 mile-per-hour school zone, issued two weeks after she sped through the area.
That citation wasn’t the end of it.
“I got one ticket,” Atkins said. “And then a couple of days later, I got two at the same time. And then it kept coming, like every other day.”
In total, over the course of a month she got eight citations, some just days apart, totaling more than $900.
Atkins doesn’t dispute that she was speeding, but still feels the system is unfair. And her situation brings up a debate about whether these cameras are the best way to slow down traffic.
The argument against: Rep. Washburn said he doesn’t buy the argument that citations in the mail slow down drivers.
Among the fallacies he said he sees with the cameras – unlike drivers pulled over by actual police officers, drivers ticketed by automated cameras often don’t know they’ve exceeded the speed limit until weeks later, when citations arrive in mailboxes. That means the speeder goes right on speeding in the meantime, sometimes racking up more and more tickets.
Atkins isn’t one of Washburn’s constituents, but he said he’s heard stories like hers.
“It would make sense that if it was much of a deterrent, she wouldn’t have gotten eight tickets by then,” Washburn said.
“If you want to slow traffic down,” he said, “the best thing to do is have a patrol car sitting there and people will slow down.”
The other side: Not everyone sees the cameras as a problem. Ashley Rose-Toomer, executive director of the nonprofit Give School Kids a Brake, says the cameras lead to lower speeds and less incidents. The nonprofit advocates for school zone safety and, among its initiatives, gives honors to school crossing guards.
Told that a lawmaker wants to terminate automated cameras completely, Rose-Toomer said, “I would really want to know why.”
She described some drivers’ complaints as outliers and says she hopes legislators will look at the big picture. She said even if a driver does find out about a citation weeks after the infraction, that’s still a deterrent, because the speeder ultimately gets the message to slow down near schools.
“I really hope that legislators will consider the data when making decisions about automated enforcement,” Dr. Rose-Toomer said. “And I hope that their primary concern, when introducing legislation related to automated enforcement, is about student safety. And that’s really all we can be concerned about.”
The backstory: Touted as a school safety measure, automated school zone speed cameras were legalized by the state legislature in 2018, with a bill passed after midnight before that year’s Sine Die, reportedly with help from then-Speaker of the House David Ralston, whose son was lobbying for a camera company.
Over the past year, a series of I-Team investigations uncovered problems with ticketing systems in several areas of metro Atlanta, including school zone lights flashing off schedule and mis-programmed camera timers, causing thousands of motorists to receive citations they didn’t deserve.
Those investigations led the cities of Atlanta, Riverdale and Jonesboro to issue hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds.
The I-Team has also spoken with drivers who said they didn’t know they had school zone citations until they tried to renew their vehicle registration, forcing them to pay up pronto or drive with an expired tag. Under the 2018 law, anyone who fails to pay can’t renew their vehicle registration until they settle up.
Last summer, the I-Team reported how a school zone near R.N. Fickett Elementary School in southwest Atlanta sits well beyond 1,000 feet from the school parking lot, despite state law defining a school zone as “the area within 1,000 feet of the boundary of any public or private elementary or secondary school.”
Because the school zone predates the 2018 law, though, the city told the I-Team it can go on ticketing there.
By the numbers: Just in Atlanta alone, the city has raked in more than $3.7 million since August 2023, according to records obtained from the Atlanta Finance Department. A private company, Verra Mobility, that runs the cameras gets $25 per citation paid. The rest goes to the city and the school district.
Verra Mobility is not alone. The I-Team has examined contracts across the state, and found other private companies, like RedSpeed and Blue Line Solutions, generally taking about a third of each violation paid.
What’s next: Rep. Washburn said he expects a fight over his bill from lobbyists working for camera companies. But for his part, he said he’s not budging.
“I am not going to change my view on these school zone speed cameras and what they’re doing to Georgians,” Washburn said. “The legislative process is what it is, and often there ends up being compromise. We will cross that bridge when we come to it. But my intention now is to outlaw this system.”
The Georgia General Assembly’s 2025-26 regular session begins Jan. 13.
Source: FOX 5
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