City will reimburse ticketed drivers after FOX 5 I-Team finds glitch in speed cameras
City to reimburse ticketed drivers
Hundreds of drivers in one metro Atlanta town will soon be reimbursed for speeding tickets issued by cameras. Five years ago, a new state law made it legal for police to set up automated cameras in school speed zones and send tickets through the mail. Now a FOX 5 I-Team investigation finds those cameras weren’t functioning properly in one Clayton County city, resulting in drivers receiving tickets they didn’t deserve.
JONESBORO, Ga. - Hundreds of drivers in one metro Atlanta city will be reimbursed for speeding tickets issued by automated cameras, following a FOX 5 I-Team investigation into one woman’s complaint of receiving citations she didn't deserve.
Five years ago, a new state law made it legal for police to set up cameras in school speed zones and send tickets through the mail. But the I-Team found some of those cameras weren’t functioning properly near two Jonesboro schools, causing drivers to receive erroneous tickets.
Alleice Woodhouse complained to FOX 5 that she was ticketed outside Suder Elementary School based on the wrong speed limit. She said when she tried to point this out to a municipal court judge, he blew her off and ordered her to pay up anyway.
The I-Team found that Woodhouse not only had a valid point, but she wasn’t the only driver affected.
Alleice Woodhouse's morning commute from Conyers to Jonesboro took her past Suder Elementary School, where she received three speeding tickets from an automated camera based on the wrong speed limit. (FOX 5)
"If I speed, I should pay. If I’m not speeding, then you should not charge me," Woodhouse said. "After my court hearing, I knew that I needed someone to help me get to the bottom of this situation, so that’s when I called you."
Woodhouse said she initially thought she had a good chance of beating the two tickets, having both perception and reality on her side. Before she triggered the automated camera on Lake Jodeco Road, she passed a school zone sign saying the speed limit is 25 miles per hour when lights are flashing. If lights aren't flashing, a nearby sign says the speed limit is 35 miles per hour.
The two tickets, one from April and one from May, said she was speeding above a 25 miles per hour limit at around 8:30 in the morning. The fines were $125 each.
When she took her case in front of Jonesboro Municipal Court Chief Judge Charles Keith Wood, neither perception nor reality mattered. Her hearing, held remotely, lasted a little over four minutes.
"This is my way to work every morning," she told Judge Wood. "The school lights don’t blink at 8:30. They kind of stop around 8 o’clock, and I have photos that I went by and I took. So, technically, the speed limit was 35 at this time."
Signs near Suder Elementary School say the speed limit is 25 miles per hour when lights are flashing, and 35 miles per hour when they aren't. (FOX 5)
Only one thing seemed to matter: paperwork. Judge Wood asked a court worker if they had documents showing the lights are proper and the speeds are calibrated correctly, and the worker said yes.
"Ma’am, I just have to go based on what the documents show," Wood told Woodhouse. "And so, basically for that reason, I’m going to find you liable for these two citations."
"That’s very unfair," Woodhouse told the judge.
Judge Wood did not respond to requests for comment from FOX 5.
Trial attorney and former Georgia State Bar president Lester Tate reviewed a recording of Woodhouse’s hearing. He told FOX 5 the system denies drivers the basic right to cross-examine their accuser.
"You’ve heard before, maybe, the term highway robbery," Tate said. "This is, sort of, school zone robbery. And unfortunately, it’s been legalized by the Legislature."
In 2018, a bill allowing the cameras passed after the stroke of midnight on the final day of the state 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.
Automated speed cameras, like this one in Jonesboro, have been popping up all over metro Atlanta ever since the Georgia Legislature passed a law in 2018 allowing the cameras in school zones. (FOX 5)
The law allows for fines of $75 for the first offense and $125 for any offense after that. It also says drivers must be going at least 11 miles over the speed limit to be ticketed.
Jonesboro’s city council approved a contract with a company called RedSpeed in 2019, giving RedSpeed a 33% cut of every ticket issued. The city now has speed cameras set up outside two elementary schools and one alternative school. During the first year the cameras operated, records obtained by the FOX 5 I-Team show, the cameras raked in nearly $1 million in revenue for the city and more than half a million dollars in fees for RedSpeed.
Alleice Woodhouse got hit with her first ticket late last year. She paid the $75 and moved on.
But then a few months later, she received the two other tickets that that judge would make her pay – totaling $250 in fines. This time, she paid more attention, noting that the tickets said she violated a 25 miles-per-hour speed limit at about 8:30 a.m.
She said she’s sure she never saw lights blinking to indicate the speed limit had dropped.
"I’m positive," she said. "I would have slowed down."
According to the Clayton County Transportation and Development department’s flasher schedule, she’s correct. The lights weren't supposed to be flashing when she drove through.
The I-Team also obtained data on all tickets issued by Jonesboro school zone speed cameras since the beginning of 2023 – totaling more than 17,000 citations. On the morning of Woodhouse’s first ticket, 23 other citations were issued for speeding above 25 after 8 a.m. The morning of her second ticket, there were 22 others like it after 8 a.m.
The FOX 5 I-Team found hundreds of citations issued by automated speed cameras in Jonesboro using the wrong speed limit in school zones. (FOX 5)
The I-Team also found tickets issued for the wrong speed limit at the wrong time near Perry Learning Center. In total, the team identified more than 450 tickets issued in Jonesboro, this year alone, to drivers who weren’t going fast enough to be ticketed under the law.
The I-Team turned its research over to the city. After reviewing it, Jonesboro Police Chief Tommy Henderson told FOX 5 that Mrs. Woodhouse, and hundreds of other drivers like her, will be receiving refunds.
"We have identified there are some citations that may have been written inappropriately by the system, and it would be due to a programming error for the times, for when the flashers would be on or when they would be off," Chief Henderson said.
The chief wouldn’t say who’s responsible for the programming mistake. Under the contract, RedSpeed services and maintains the cameras. But every ticket is signed off on by a Jonesboro police officer.
Jonesboro Police Chief Tommy Henderson said he is still working out the details for how ticket reimbursements will work, but he assured the FOX 5 I-Team, "We’re going to make sure that justice is served." (FOX 5)
"We do have a team that’s supposed to check them manually," he said. "Mainly what they’re looking for is that tag, that vehicle, at that location, and that’s it."
The chief said he’s still working out the details on how the refunds will work, and the city will be meeting with RedSpeed next week to iron that out. RedSpeed declined to comment for this story.
Despite the errors, the chief said he still believes the speed zone cameras are keeping students and school staff safe. He said before the FOX 5 I-Team brought the faulty camera timers to his attention, he hadn’t received any complaints about drivers being ticketed for the wrong speed limit.
Tate, the trial attorney, said it’s no surprise that so few people protested.
"Who’s going to go hire a lawyer, pay the filing fee for a civil case, which is higher than what the fine was?" Tate said. "The total incentive is keep your mouth shut, pay your fine, and let us have your money."