Backlash growing against school zone speed cameras in Georgia

ATLANTA - Georgia’s school zone speed cameras, which snap pictures of license plates and cite car owners by mail, face a battle for survival.

While police say the cameras help keep children and school employees safe, drivers have complained for years about ticket-happy cameras that benefit private companies and governments. Both state lawmakers and plaintiffs’ attorneys have taken notice.

"I think there have been certain jurisdictions and companies that have run these cameras in excess," state Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, told the FOX 5 I-Team. "They were not properly marked. They have confused drivers. And it’s not been the type of solution that was intended to originally be in some cases."

One bill pending in the state Legislature would banish the automated systems, overturning the 2018 law that allowed them in the first place.

Another bill, passed by the House last year and now carried by Albers in the Senate, would tighten the time window for issuing tickets and bar private companies from taking a financial cut of tickets paid, Albers said.

Meanwhile, an Augusta plaintiffs’ attorney has class action lawsuits pending against two camera companies, aiming to outlaw their business model.

"It doesn’t throw out the cameras," attorney John Bell said of either of his lawsuits succeeding. "It throws out the private, for-profit company operating on a percentage basis, where their compensation is tied to how much money they can extract."

Last year, the I-Team exposed a glitch in some cameras that caused Jonesboro to ticket hundreds of drivers based on the wrong speed limit, with the city eventually agreeing to refund or dismiss 1,244 citations.

Since then, the I-Team has heard from dozens of drivers complaining about the cameras, some confused about when they operate, some shocked after receiving multiple tickets in a row.

A first ticket ranges from about $75 to $100, depending on the jurisdiction. Bell says the low fine amounts discourage people from fighting the tickets.

"The big thing is, they got the fines low enough, and they tell you, ‘It won’t go on your record, no points, anything,’" Bell said. "‘Just send us your money.’"

Bell, known for successfully taking on Georgia’s private probation companies, has filed cases against RedSpeed and Blue Line Solutions, who manage cameras for several police departments throughout the state. The case against RedSpeed is filed in superior court in Jefferson County, near Augusta, and the case against Blue Line is in federal court.

Another class action lawsuit was filed against RedSpeed by an Albany attorney, but a federal judge has already dismissed three of the four counts in that complaint.

"This is a very creative money grab by some very smart plaintiffs’ attorneys trying to find a way to make a whole heck of a lot of money," said Christopher Cohilas, an attorney for RedSpeed.

RedSpeed provided statistics to the I-Team showing that in some Georgia locations, speeding has dropped by 84 to 96%, with recidivism rates indicating most drivers only need one ticket to get the message to slow down.

"In reality," Cohilas said, "this is an enforcement scheme that provides tremendous safety to communities and reduces the overall rate of recidivism with respect to speeding."

One of the class action cases started in Tallulah Falls when a couple in their 70s got ticketed for going 56 miles per hour on a four-lane highway past a middle school. The school zone speed limit was 45 at the time.

Bell alleges in the lawsuits that the camera companies aren't police, but they pose as police when they mail citations. The complaints point to Blue Line using its Tennessee address on citations from Tallulah Falls, and RedSpeed using its Atlanta post office box on citations from the city of Wrens, Georgia.  

The cases cite the Georgia law against impersonating an officer and accuse the companies of "wrongful impersonation of law enforcement and agencies."

"I think it’s offensive," Bell said. "There is a reason we have law enforcement that are elected or serve under elected people, who are responsible for their duties, and who are not paid based on how many people they arrest or how much money they can extract out of people."

The lawsuits also invoke Georgia's racketeering law. One alleges, "RedSpeed has engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity by inflating electronic processing fees, retaining percentages of the civil monetary penalty which it is not authorized to retain, causing notices of violations to be mailed to Plaintiff and Class Members as though RedSpeed is a law enforcement official."

Both companies have denied the allegations in court filings, saying the 2018 law allows what they do.

"The Georgia Legislature literally put in place a mechanism to protect children, and that’s all that RedSpeed is doing," Cohilas said. "The allegations in the complaint that this somehow constitutes racketeering are silly, and we’ve defended lawsuits already in other parts of the state and have been having great success."

In a written statement to the I-Team, Blue Line said, "We strongly disagree with the allegations of the Complaint, and we believe our conduct complied with the requirements set by the Georgia legislature. We have filed a motion to dismiss to that effect, and that is pending a decision by the Court."

In 2018, the Georgia legislature passed a school speed camera law that opened the doors for dozens of municipalities across the state to contract with private companies to ticket violators. That bill passed after the stroke of midnight on the final day of the legislative session, reportedly with help from then-Speaker of the House David Ralston, whose son Matt Ralston was pushing the bill as a lobbyist for a speed camera company.

Companies that contract with municipalities typically take a cut of about a third of each ticket paid.

Sen. Albers said House Bill 348, which he is sponsoring in the Senate, would put an end to that.

"It’s going to make sure that no camera company is benefitting financially from the amount of tickets they write," Albers said. "It’s a flat fee that they work with the local municipality."

The bill would also require school zone signs to be uniform throughout the state. Under the proposal, cameras could only write speeding tickets at the beginning and end of school days, when orange lights are flashing on speed limit signs.

"We never want this to be anything more than protecting students," Albers said. "We don’t ever want it to be a money grab."

House Bill 1126 would go even further – completely jettisoning the 2018 law.

Its sponsor, Rep. Clay Pirkle, R-Ashburn, called the camera systems a "hot mess" in testimony before the House Motor Vehicles Committee on Tuesday.

"School zone cameras have become a gravy train of revenue, with very little work for the agencies that employ this technology," Pirkle said. "We have been sold a bill of goods. It’s actually a Trojan horse. A golden goose, revenue-generator disguised in school safety language."

The committee approved the bill unanimously. It’s now with the House Rules Committee.