More Tampa School Zones Get Speed Cameras Before the Aug. 10 First Day. Here's the List and the Fine.

Tampa City Council voted unanimously on Thursday, July 16, to expand the city's school-zone speed camera program from 12 zones to 18, adding four New Tampa zones just three weeks before Hillsborough County students return to class on Monday, Aug. 10. Drivers caught going more than 10 mph over the posted school-zone limit face a $100 civil penalty with no points on their license, but not right away: the city must first run a 30-day education period in which violators get a warning letter in the mail instead of a bill.

City officials told council members the cameras are not installed yet and that Tampa is still working through permits. So the practical answer for the first week of school is that the cameras may not be live everywhere, and where they are live, the first month is warnings.

The 18 Tampa school zones

The new list came out of a two-day speed study RedSpeed ran in April at 29 schools and 31 school zones. Six of the 12 zones from the city's original 2024 ordinance stayed on. Twelve are new. The additions spread enforcement well beyond East and West Tampa, which is what several council members said they wanted.

New Tampa (four zones, five schools):

• Benito Middle School, Cross Creek Boulevard
• Liberty Middle and Freedom High, Commercial Park Boulevard
• Lawton Chiles Elementary, Tampa Palms Boulevard West
• Turner/Bartels K-8, Imperial Oaks Boulevard

Elsewhere in the city: St. Lawrence Catholic School (N. Himes Avenue), T.R. Robinson High (S. Manhattan Avenue), Lanier Elementary (S. Westshore Boulevard), Young Middle Magnet and Lomax Magnet Elementary (E. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard), Mendenhall Elementary (N. Rome Avenue), Ferrell Girls Preparatory Academy (N. 22nd Street), MacFarlane Park Elementary Magnet, Alexander Elementary (N. Lois Avenue), Tampa Bay Boulevard Elementary, Lockhart Elementary Magnet, Seminole Elementary, Shaw Elementary and Mabry Elementary.

The study numbers are the part worth sitting with. On Himes Avenue by St. Lawrence, the two-day average was 3,021 vehicles a day exceeding the limit by at least 10 mph, counted between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Mabry Elementary, 18th on the list, averaged about 200. Across all 18 locations, the study counted more than 15,000 speeding vehicles a day.

Where your $100 goes

The program costs the city nothing up front. The split on each paid ticket is set out in the ordinance documents.

Recipient	Per ticket
City of Tampa (net)	$39
RedSpeed (vendor)	$21
State general revenue	$20
Hillsborough school district	$12
Crossing guard recruiting	$5
Law enforcement training trust	$3

Council members spent much of Thursday's hearing on surveillance rather than speed. A Tampa police deputy chief told them RedSpeed will not share data with Flock Safety, will not use license plate readers, and that footage is deleted after 30 days unless there is a violation. He cited a sworn affidavit from RedSpeed's chief executive. One resident told the council he did not want to live with Big Brother. The vote was unanimous anyway.

The county side is already stricter

Outside city limits, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office has been running cameras in 29 school zones under a program it calls Operation Safe Passage, and since last fall that enforcement covers the whole school day instead of just drop-off and dismissal. New signs posted in the Riverview High zone on Boyette Road spelled it out as photo-enforced from 7:25 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. When the beacons flash, the reduced limit applies. When they are off during the posted window, the regular limit is enforced, and 11 mph over is a ticket either way.

The volume jumped when the hours did. County records covering August 2024 through July 2025 showed 5,775 notices of violation and $310,378 in fines, with 3,094 paid and only five contested and dismissed. After the program restarted for the school year on Sept. 22, 2025, a sheriff's office sergeant said in a public radio interview that roughly 8,700 notices had gone out in about three weeks.

County zones include Bloomingdale High, Steinbrenner High, Lennard High, Town 'N Country Elementary, Buchanan Middle, Martinez Middle, Ruskin Elementary and Winthrop Charter, among others. The full list with addresses is on the sheriff's office program page.

A state bill filed for the 2026 session would have narrowed camera enforcement to a window around arrival and dismissal, which would have undone the county's all-day approach. It died in the Senate Fiscal Policy committee in March, so the current rules stand.

More county zones are coming. On July 15 commissioners directed staff to work with the sheriff's office on drafting an amendment adding school zones in unincorporated Hillsborough, according to the county's meeting recap. No schools have been named, and the amendment still needs a public hearing and a board vote before any camera goes up. The next regular commission meeting is 9 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 5, five days before the first bell.

For more Tampa and Hillsborough coverage, visit Tampa Community Website and follow us on Facebook. Got a school zone near you that needs a camera, or one that already has one? Join the conversation in our Community Forum.

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