New Kent County has been the state’s poster child for speed camera citations, issuing more than 71,000 in work and school zones last year. At $100 per ticket, that adds up to more than $7.1 million for the county in just five months of a new work zone camera campaign.

For violators of speed zone cameras in New Kent and across the state, the infraction does not add points to their driver’s license, nor is their insurance company notified. But there’s another statistic that’s gotten little attention: 35,000 of New Kent’s citations — which would account for $3.5 million in fines — went unpaid, and the county didn’t pursue the deadbeats in court.

“Up to this point, the cases that have not been paid, contested or rebutted have not been processed any further,” said Sheriff Lee S. Bailey, adding that the county is working on collaborating with a collections agency. “Due to the volume, it would be extremely difficult to docket all the unpaid cases in court.”

Similar policies are in place in other localities. For most people who ignore the citations, there are no consequences.

Legislation passed this year aims to prod more people to pay, but it may have the unintended consequence of making collections even harder for localities.

At stake in all of this are tens of millions of dollars for localities desperate for funding.

The law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, requires General District courts to notify the Department of Motor Vehicles about those who fail to respond to a court summons to pay their fine. Once notified, DMV is required to refuse to renew their car’s license plate or registration.

That’s a problem. General District Courts in the state are paper-based. Each unpaid case would have to be manually entered into the system by a clerk. And not just for the delinquent school zone and work zone fines, but also for the red-light cases and now pedestrian crossing citations, which were added by legislation this year.

The number of cases to be manually entered into the General District Court system is staggering.

As traffic cameras proliferate, citations pile up

An exact statewide number is hard to pin down, but at the low end, the new law will result in hundreds of thousands of new records that have to be entered via the General District Courts — a number that will only grow as camera systems continue to expand.

Just counting school zone and work zone cameras statewide last year, there were roughly 350,000 unpaid citations, according to a state police report. That doesn’t include red-light camera citations, which can number in the tens of thousands in a city. Virginia Beach, for example, had more than 44,600 last year, but wasn’t able to say how many were paid because there were “numerous methods” to pay, according to a records request. The city collected nearly $2.1 million in red light fines, which are $50 compared to speed zone fines of $100.

Suffolk, which was a runner-up in the revenue race last year to New Kent County, with $6.5 million mostly collected in work zones, had nearly 65,000 unpaid citations in 2025. When delinquent notices were ignored, the fine was turned over to collections. Of those, just 116 — or 0.17% — were paid, according to Jennifer Moore, the city’s communications director. The city does not pursue cases in court.

Other localities already are not trying to collect or are limiting court cases. Portsmouth, which reported more than 10,000 unpaid fines last year, did not pursue delinquencies. Norfolk, which only operated three red light cameras and few school cameras until earlier this year when it activated all 19 school zone cameras, pursued 200 cases two days a month because of limits set by the city’s General District Court, according to an email obtained through a public records request. Nearly all those cases are dismissed, according to statistics supplied by the city.

In Hampton Roads cities using speed cameras, the 2025 pay rate, dubbed the “successful prosecution rate” in the report, ranges from 45.6% in Norfolk to 60% in Chesapeake.

Seemingly no plans in place to handle avalanche of new court records

Of the court clerks contacted, none had a ready answer about how they would handle the requirement to notify DMV.

In New Kent, where the sheriff said prosecuting nonpayers would clog the court’s docket, County Administrator Rodney Hathaway said in a statement: “We are currently working with a vendor for collections services while we evaluate the new legislation and work with the General District Courts to determine how best to move forward.”

Hampton General District Court clerk James Smith said he sees about 100 contested camera cases a month. But the law would require notification by the court of anyone who does not pay – at least 20,000 speed camera cases last year in the city.

“If you’re talking about increasing that (100 cases) by 10 to 20 times that amount, it would be drastic,” he said, adding that it might require moving to a larger space or adding a separate department. “We would have to revisit our entire staffing model because, as it is right now, that increase in volume would not be sustainable with what we currently have.”

After reviewing the changes sent by email, he said he anticipated that the Office of the Executive Secretary, a department of the Virginia Supreme Court that provides support for state courts and issues a manual for General District Courts, would develop a statewide procedure for handling the cases.

A representative of the executive secretary’s office declined to comment. The manual recommends that in photo red light, speed zone and pedestrian cases, General District Court clerks “will manually enter case” information into the system.

Other clerks declined to comment or didn’t have a solution. Suffolk General District Court clerk Annie Gayle took a phone call and then an email about the new requirements but didn’t respond. Virginia Beach General District Court Chief Judge Sandra S. Menago, in a statement sent through her judicial assistant, said she was “not comfortable” discussing court procedures about the cases.

“But I can tell you the court has had to make many changes to our docket schedule to accommodate hearing all of these cases,” she wrote. “They have definitely placed a burden on the court’s limited staff as well.”

Virginia Beach has had red light cameras for years, but their speed zone camera program began only earlier this year. Menago did not answer follow-up questions about how the clerk’s office would handle the dramatically increased caseload.

Even before the new DMV reporting requirements were passed, Norfolk officials discussed concerns that only about half those fined paid, according to exchanges from emails earlier this year obtained through a records request. At the time, the city was operating a rotation of school zone cameras, not all of them. Officials decided to activate all 19 school locations, figuring that 50% of the fines in all locations was better than 50% of a few locations.

In one email to council member Jeremy McGee, who raised questions about the lack of enforcement, Norfolk Circuit Court clerk George Schaefer cited the outdated paper-based system. He suggested the city see if Del. Phil Hernandez (D-Norfolk) would push for a pilot program funded by the General Assembly to automate processing of camera cases.

Schaefer, who has created proprietary automation systems for Circuit Court, said he approached the Office of the Executive Secretary at the Supreme Court more than a year ago, offering to create an automated process. He was rebuffed. Court officials said they planned to digitize General District Courts in about two years.

General District Courts, he said, will not be able to meet the law’s requirements. “Look at their processes. It’s a paper chase,” he said. “It’s nightmarish.”

Hernandez did not respond to emails or to a phone request made with his legislative assistant by phone. Norfolk General District Court clerk Jennifer Morgan did not respond to emails.

A spokesperson for the Department of Motor Vehicles also deferred. “Since the courts will be providing this information to DMV, they may be better positioned to answer questions about how the information will be processed and transmitted,” said Camila Knight.

Sen. Michael Jones, (D-Richmond) sponsored the changes in the law to add DMV renewal refusal for non-payers. He said he did not know about, nor was he aware of, the cases potentially overloading General District courts.

“You are alerting me to an issue that’s going on,” he said. “I will definitely have staff follow up and see what the challenges are for sure.”