The school bell isn’t the only thing ringing across Tampa Bay this week. So are cash registers.
As students head back to class Monday, local governments are flipping school zone speed cameras back on across Hillsborough County and the cities of Tampa, Lakeland, Bradenton and Sarasota. A Spectrum Bay News 9 Watchdog investigation found the cameras generated 236,600 notices of violation last school year alone — a haul that flows not just to school safety programs, but to a private vendor, county coffers and the state of Florida.
The numbers, by jurisdiction:
- Hillsborough County — 154,262 notices
- City of Sarasota — 56,461
- Bradenton — 17,177
- Lakeland — 8,000
Every $100 ticket is carved up five ways. Local governments keep $60 — but $21 of that goes straight back out the door to RedSpeed, the private company that installed and operates the cameras. The state takes $20. School districts get $12. Crossing guard programs get $5. Law enforcement gets $3.
Do the math, and RedSpeed — a private vendor with no elected accountability — pockets more from each ticket than crossing guards and law enforcement combined.
Safety pitch, revenue reality
Officials insist the program is about protecting kids, not padding budgets. Bradenton Police Chief Josh Cramer defended the cameras as a staffing necessity, saying his department simply doesn’t have enough officers to patrol every school zone during arrival and dismissal.
“Follow speed laws, it’s pretty simple,” Cramer said, noting drivers get a 10 mph cushion above the posted limit before a citation is triggered.
But the report itself acknowledges what many taxpayers have long suspected: even backers concede these programs raise questions about whether they’re designed primarily to change driver behavior or to generate a steady revenue stream for governments and a for-profit contractor. RedSpeed operates cameras in 600 school zones statewide — a footprint that keeps growing, with Tampa now activating 18 zones after scrapping its program before it ever launched last year, and Hillsborough County commissioners pushing the sheriff’s office to identify still more locations in unincorporated areas.
Notably, when Spectrum News asked the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office how many additional cameras are planned and when installation would begin, deputies could not say — only that the expansion “was still being discussed.” Temple Terrace officials are expected to vote on installing their own cameras at a meeting next week.
The fine print if you get caught
Drivers who’d rather not simply pay up face an uphill and unevenly priced appeals process. Challenging a violation costs an extra $75 administrative fee in Hillsborough County — and as much as $250 in Lakeland, a gap that raises its own fairness questions depending on which side of a county line a driver happens to live on.
If a $100 notice goes unpaid and unappealed within 30 days, it can escalate into a uniform traffic citation carrying criminal penalties — turning what starts as a mailed notice into a matter for the courts.
RedSpeed says the deterrent works: the company reports 90% of drivers who receive a citation don’t reoffend. Whether that reflects safer streets or simply drivers who’ve learned where the cameras sit is a question the data alone can’t answer.
For now, the cameras are live, the fines are automatic, and the expansion plans remain, in officials’ own words, still being worked out.
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