Do you drive past a school zone speed camera each day? Check our map

There are nearly 400 of the cameras statewide. They are used to issue tickets for speeding even when a law enforcement officer was not present. They have resulted in millions of dollars of fines for drivers, who have complained that they have been ticketed when they weren’t speeding, weren’t near an entrance to a school or weren’t driving within school zone hours.

Shellie Myers, a Forsyth County resident, was surprised to receive a $75 ticket in the mail last year. She remembers driving near a Cherokee County elementary school in the afternoon, but didn’t see any flashing signs to tell her she was in a school zone. A few months later, her husband received a ticket from driving near a Gwinnett County school.

“I was confused,” she said. A parent of two now-adult children, she said she is always mindful of school zones. “I was not happy at all.”

Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, authored House Bill 651 at the request of House Speaker Jon Burns. It tries to fix the speed cameras, rather than ban them.

HB 651 would require flashing signs to display a driver’s speed as they approach a camera; penalize local governments earning more than 35% of working capital from the devices; limit the use of the cameras to an hour before and after the start and end of the school day; require local governments to split any money earned with the school systems for use on safety initiatives; require any tickets to prominently display the logo of the local government agency it’s from and state that recipients can contest the tickets by contacting their local court; and prohibit $25 administrative fees. It also states that drivers who are within 10 mph over the posted speed limit cannot be ticketed.

“It started out as an idea for school safety and it got out of hand,” Powell said this week about the automated devices. But a ban wouldn’t be the answer, he said: “It’s always about putting the proper guardrails and parameters into place.”

Myers thinks those changes would make a difference.

Rep. Dale Washburn, R-Macon, disagrees. He introduced House Bill 225 to ban the speed cameras entirely.

“I’ve had one of these tickets, but I can afford to pay the $100. But there’s a lot of little Waffle House waitresses and cleaning ladies and construction workers and even some schoolteachers who have a hard time paying that $100,” he said this week. “It’s wrong to allow these camera companies to take the money they have taken out of Georgia.”

The law allowing the devices was originally passed with backing from American Traffic Solutions, an Arizona-based company that installs and operates such cameras. The company contributed to the campaigns of several of the lawmakers involved in approving the cameras. It now goes by the name Verra Mobility, and operates close to two dozen cameras in metro Atlanta, according to the Georgia Department of Transportation data. RedSpeed Georgia operates the most cameras in the metro area, at more than 90. The company contributed $150,000 each to both Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’ leadership committee and a PAC tied to the House GOP caucus between September 2023 and October 2024.