Cape Coral switches its school zone speed cameras back on for August 11, and the statute splits each $100 violation five ways before the city keeps $60
The Cape Coral Police Department has confirmed that its RedSpeed school zone speed cameras start enforcing again on August 11, the first day of the 2026-2027 school year.
The department published the notice on July 29 under the byline of Lisa Greenberg. It sets out the enforcement windows, the penalty and the ways a registered owner can respond.
Cameras operate on school days only. They run for thirty minutes before the start of school, during school hours, and for thirty minutes after dismissal. A driver travelling more than ten miles per hour above the applicable limit inside one of those windows is subject to a $100 Notice of Violation, issued to the registered owner of the vehicle. The department gives the example of thirty one miles per hour in a twenty mile per hour zone.
The department also draws a distinction that catches drivers out. When the school zone lights are flashing, the reduced school zone limit is enforced. When the lights are not flashing during school hours, the ordinary posted limit applies. In both cases the trigger is the same, more than ten miles per hour over whichever limit is in force.
Every potential violation is reviewed by a law enforcement officer or a traffic infraction enforcement officer before a notice is issued, according to the release.
Sixteen school zones carry the cameras: Ida S. Baker High School, Challenger Middle, Diplomat Middle, Mariner Middle, Trafalgar Middle, Cape Elementary, Diplomat Elementary, Gulf Elementary, Oasis Charter Elementary North, Patriot Elementary, Pelican Elementary, Skyline Elementary, Trafalgar Elementary, St. Andrews Catholic School, Thrive Academy and Cape Coral Christian School. Five of those are charter, private or independent schools rather than Lee County district schools.
An owner who receives a notice has three options: pay it, submit an affidavit setting out an exception to liability under section 316.1896 of the Florida Statutes, or request a hearing. Under that statute a hearing may be requested within thirty days and no payment or fee may be required before it takes place.
The release does not say where the money goes. The statute it cites does.
Section 316.1896(5) divides each $100 penalty into five fixed parts. Sixty dollars is retained by the city and must be used to administer speed detection systems in school zones and other public safety initiatives. Twenty dollars goes to the Department of Revenue for the General Revenue Fund. Twelve dollars goes to the county school district in which the violation occurred, restricted to school security initiatives, student transportation or improving the safety of student walking conditions, and must be shared with charter schools in proportion to their share of the district's total unweighted full time equivalent enrolment. Five dollars stays with the city for the School Crossing Guard Recruitment and Retention Program under section 316.1894. Three dollars goes to the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Trust Fund.
The city must remit the state's share to the Department of Revenue weekly by electronic funds transfer, with a detailed summary of the penalties remitted.
If an owner neither pays nor files an affidavit nor requests a hearing within thirty days, the statute directs that a uniform traffic citation be sent by certified mail, at which point court fees and costs attach.
RedSpeed is also named in a second Cape Coral camera programme. In a question and answer published by the Cape Coral Breeze on July 23, the police department said its Flock Safety automated licence plate reader network "was provided through RedSpeed at no cost to the Cape Coral Police Department". In the same answers the department said it does not publicly disclose the number or locations of its licence plate reader cameras, that it has used stationary readers in the city for more than a decade, and that the data collected belongs solely to the department.
Those are two separate systems. The school zone cameras measure speed at named schools. The licence plate readers photograph and record passing vehicles at intersections, and two of them were found pulled down at Diplomat Parkway East and Santa Barbara Boulevard on July 30, an incident Cape Coral police say remains under investigation.
No published city document connects the penalty revenue from one system to the cost of the other, and none is asserted here. The contract terms behind the phrase "at no cost" have not been made public.
