By Hank Silverberg, ADVANCE CORRESPONDENT
If you travel anywhere near a school in the Fredericksburg area, there’s a good chance you will pass by one of many speed cameras designed to slow down traffic in school zones. There are ten cameras in Spotsylvania across five school zones, and six cameras in Fredericksburg across four zones.
The school zones, though marked with signs and flashing lights during school hours, come up on you fast, often dropping the speed limit from 45 to 25 mph very quickly. It happened to me last month. I confess I was speeding to pick up my grandchild at school in Caroline County and forgot to slow down near Battlefield Middle school on Leavells Road.
I paid the $50fine made out to the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s office, but I had to mail the check to Philadelphia to the company that administered the program for the county. (You can also pay the tickets online.) That company receives $14.00 from every ticket issued. So far, in fiscal 2027, the county has collected $206,926 in fines. The total from fiscal 2026 was $748,847 from 27,673 citations.
In Spotsylvania County, funds collected from the fines are allocated to the county’s capital projects fund. In an email to the Advance, a spokeswoman says they “anticipate that revenues will decline as behavior improves, so the current proceeds are being used to cash‑fund eligible projects.”
A county spokesman says that based on the number of citations issued so far this year, there has been a 49 percent reduction in speeding near the four schools which had the cameras last school year. That doesn’t include the zone near Massaponax High School which was added in the middle of last year.
The location of the Spotsylvania cameras include:
Battlefield Elementary School, 11108 Leavells Road
Battlefield Middle School, 11120 Leavells Road
Courthouse Road Elementary School, 9911 Courthouse Road
Livingston Elementary School, 6057 Courthouse Road
Massaponax High School, 8201 Patriot Highway
Salem Elementary School, 4501 Jackson Road
Last year with only three speed camera zones in place, the City of Fredericksburg collected $672,618 from 9,551 tickets. After adding an additional zone, the city has already issued 6,037 citations so far this year.
In an email to the Advance a spokesman for the city indicated total revenue from the cameras is $1,124,069 to date. But the city pays $3,499 a month for each camera to a company called Altumint to operate and maintain the cameras.
You can find out where the cameras are located in Fredericksburg and how many tickets have been issued at each site, by going to this website: Summons Issuance Transparency | Fredericksburg, VA - Official Website
Stafford County just added three speed cameras in school zones with the start of this school year this September.
They are set up at:
Stafford Middle School, 101 Spartan Drive
Colonial Forge High School, 550 Courthouse Road
Edward E. Drew Middle School, 501 Cambridge Street
A Virginia State Police report released earlier this year said the state collected $54 million from over 600,000 speed camera tickets across 49 jurisdictions in 2025. There are now cameras across 62 jurisdictions. The cameras take pictures of cars traveling 10 mph over the speed limit and mail citations to owners.
Speed camera tickets do not impact driver’s license points or insurance. Fines for infractions vary depending on how fast the car went, going up to $100 if a car drove more than 20 mph over the posted speed limit. The speed limit in all school zones in Virginia is 25 mph unless otherwise posted.
