Liens placed on more than 90K Georgia vehicles because of school zone speeding tickets

ATLANTA - As more and more speed cameras go up in school zones, tens of thousands of Georgia vehicles have been blocked from renewing car tag registrations because of unpaid fines, the FOX 5 I-Team has learned.

It can make for an unwelcome birthday surprise, and another headache caused by the controversial automated cameras which clock and photograph license plates of vehicles speeding in school zones. Under the 2018 state law that legalized the ticketing systems, anyone who fails to pay can't renew their vehicle registration until they settle up. 

The tickets go out by regular U.S. mail, but missing tickets are no excuse when the time comes to update a license plate – usually on the vehicle owner's birthday. Some drivers told the I-Team they never saw the tickets, and didn’t know where or why they had been cited, but had to either pay up or drive with an expired tag.

"It's really shocking to see them just be able to force that upon you without any evidence whatsoever, not just of the crime, but also of making notice of receiving it," said Canton driver Jeremy Brown, who had to pony up $155 to pay off two tickets mailed to an old address before he could register his 2016 Ram pickup truck. "Honestly, it seems like a gimmick to get somebody just to pay it and let it alone."

The cameras are touted as keeping children and school staff safe, and police and camera companies say they have reduced speeding all over the state. But last year a FOX 5 I-Team investigation found cameras in Jonesboro issued hundreds of faulty speeding tickets based on the wrong speed limit, resulting in more than $76,000 in refunds. Another investigation last month found more than 6,000 erroneous tickets issued in Riverdale, with more than $500,000 levied in potentially invalid fines.

The stories have prompted dozens of ticketed drivers to contact the I-Team, with some complaining of being denied their annual license plate stickers until they settled heretofore unknown speeding citations. 

One vehicle owner said he couldn’t renew the tag on a 2016 Nissan Sentra because of a ticket issued to his girlfriend, who died last year.

"I've got a car that's sitting in my driveway that I'm making a monthly payment on, that I'm maintaining full coverage insurance on," J. Scott Maddox, of Gwinnett County, said. "And yet I can't use the vehicle on the road." 

He isn't alone. According to records provided by the Georgia Department of Revenue, 90,141 vehicles currently have registration holds because of unpaid citations issued by school zone speed cameras. 

The tickets are civil violations, not criminal. So the tickets can’t lead to points against a driver’s license, and failure to pay won’t lead to arrest. But they can put drivers in the predicament of being unable to legally drive their cars.

When the Georgia Legislature legalized the cameras, the law included a stipulation to hold scofflaws accountable: For any ticket not paid or contested, the Department of Revenue "shall refuse to renew the registration of the motor vehicle unless and until the civil monetary penalty plus any late fee is paid."

Augusta attorney John Bell, who filed two class action lawsuits against two private camera companies seeking to end their business model, said the process raises due process concerns. (One of his lawsuits, against camera company Blue Line Solutions, has been dismissed by a federal judge, but Bell said he will file a motion for reconsideration.)

The tickets are effectively issued against the vehicles themselves, with no consideration of who the actual driver was at the time of the infraction, but holding registered owners accountable for unpaid fines, Bell said.

"When you take away my title, my ability to drive my car and my right to sell it, without due process, that’s an infringement," Bell said. "It’s taking property, just as though they just went out and picked up my car with a trailer and took it away."

The penalty apparently only applies to Georgia car owners. The state Department of Revenue told the FOX 5 I-Team it has no authority to place holds on out-of-state vehicle registrations.

Bell said that could violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

"They may be mailing citations to out-of-state people, but I think the out-of-state people throw them in the trash can, at no risk," the attorney said. "It's an unreasonable distinction between Georgians and nonresidents of Georgia."

For Riverdale driver Gloria Jackson, the distinction meant having to surrender her 2016 Honda Civic to the dealer. She said she received so many tickets from school zone cameras in South Fulton – some dozen or more – she couldn’t afford to pay the fines. She lives on a fixed income from Social Security disability payments.

"I kept driving the car, not knowing that the cops could give me a ticket," Jackson said. "I received a ticket from them, then I stopped driving the car. I just gave the car back to the (dealer) and told them no."

Brown said when he went to a Kroger kiosk to renew his truck tag, he expected to pay $20. But then he had to shell out eight times that amount to pay off two tickets from Canton and Roswell. He has a Cherokee County tag, so he said he doesn’t understand why both tickets were mailed to a Lawrenceville address where he hasn’t lived for more than two years.

By the time he sorted out the problem, the due date for his tag renewal had passed, so he had little choice but to pay.

"It beats the expense of getting an additional ticket," he said.

Maddox said he didn’t know about his girlfriend’s school zone speeding ticket until her birthday last month, when he tried to renew the license plate on the Sentra they co-owned. Her $80 citation popped up on the Kroger kiosk screen, blocking him from registering.

By that time, he couldn’t ask her about it. Marcy Matheson died in July of heart disease. 

"I don't know if Marcy received (the ticket) or not, but Marcy's not here, and now it's my car," Maddox said. "And I have to do the responsible ownership things with my car. And the state won't let me do it because of a speeding ticket that belongs to a dead person."

Maddox said he called the Department of Revenue’s Motor Vehicles division, the Gwinnett County Tax Commissioner, and camera company RedSpeed, but no one would provide him a copy of the ticket or offer any option to fight it. 

He did learn the ticket was issued somewhere in Roswell in January 2023. Matheson suffered from degenerative disc disease, so Maddox assumes she picked up the citation on her way to or from a doctor’s appointment in that area.

It wasn’t having to pay $80 that irked him, he said. It was the principle.

"I don't think, as a taxpayer, that I should have to pay somebody else's speeding fine to legitimately register my vehicle," he said. 

His problem, however, was solved after the I-Team made an inquiry.

One agency Maddox hadn’t called was Roswell Police. After the I-Team contacted the department, a spokesman said the ticket will be dismissed.

"If the driver and registered owner of the vehicle involved in the violation has sadly passed away, as we were able to verify, then the citation would serve no greater purpose other than to increase hardship to Mr. Maddox in the midst of an already difficult situation," Public Information Officer Tim Lupo said in an email.

"I’m so happy to hear that," Maddox said. "This has turned out to be a really great day today."

To check if your car has a hold because of an unpaid citation, go to the Department of Revenue’s E-Services website and click "Vehicle Registration & Insurance Status." The database will say if there’s a hold on your tag and which city or county issued the ticket, with contact information.