Chicago Speed Camera Violations Before and After the 6 mph Threshold

Since March 1, 2021, Chicago has issued $35 speed camera tickets to drivers going 6 to 10 mph over the limit in its Children's Safety Speed Enforcement Zones. Before that, the $35 ticket applied only at exactly 10 mph over, and $100 at 11 mph or more. In the 24 months before the change, the city's cameras recorded 1,616,812 violations. In the 24 months after, they recorded 6,026,692, about 3.7 times as many. Among 69 cameras that operated throughout both periods, the increase was about 3 times.

Those counts come from the City of Chicago's open data portal, and according to the city they include violations that did not become a citation. This article sets out what the violation data shows month by month, what news reports and a policy group say about tickets and revenue, and what a simple crash comparison can and cannot tell you. The data runs through August 2026.

What changed on March 1, 2021

The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) says that effective March 1, 2021, the city began issuing $35 tickets to motorists driving 6 to 10 mph over the speed limit in all active Children's Safety Speed Enforcement Zones. Drivers going 11 mph or more over are subject to a $100 fine. CDOT's page also says a vehicle owner's first violation in a zone gets a warning notice.

Before the change, according to Streetsblog Chicago, the penalty was $35 for going exactly 10 mph over and $100 for 11 mph and above. Warning notices for the 6 to 10 mph band were mailed starting in mid-January 2021, before tickets began on March 1.

WBEZ reported that then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot introduced the $35 tickets as part of her 2021 budget. In July 2022, WBEZ reported, a City Council effort to return the threshold to 10 mph over did not pass, and the 6 mph threshold stayed in place.

For the current rules, fines and how to contest a ticket, see our guide to Chicago camera tickets. The state law that governs automated enforcement is covered in Illinois traffic camera ticket laws.

Violations per month, 2014 to 2026

The city publishes a daily count of recorded violations for each speed camera, starting July 1, 2014. Yearly totals across all cameras fell from 1,201,698 in 2015 to 862,596 in 2019. In January and February 2021, during the pandemic and just before the change, they were 45,415 and 27,289.

In March 2021 the monthly total was 326,083. It peaked at 362,063 in May 2021. Daily counts show the break sharply: 1,451 on February 28, 2021, and 12,036 on March 1. Daily counts dipped to 138 on February 15, 2021, when far fewer cameras reported, and were back near December 2020 levels by late February. The daily counts show no increase when warning letters for the new band began in mid-January.

Source: City of Chicago Data Portal, Speed Camera Violations (dataset hhkd-xvj4), retrieved October 26, 2026. Violations include events that did not result in a citation.

After the 2021 peak, totals declined each year through 2024. In the fixed set of 69 cameras, which holds the camera count constant, yearly violations went from 2,042,486 in 2021 to 1,163,330 in 2024, a 43 percent decline. They fell again in 2025, to 914,804, about 21 percent below 2024.

Citywide totals moved the other way in 2025, rising about 9 percent to 2,444,752. For January through August 2026 the city recorded 1,820,537 violations, compared with 1,478,814 in the same months of 2025.

Why the camera count matters

The number of cameras recording violations was roughly 143 to 162 in most months from 2015 through May 2025. The city's camera location file lists 48 current locations that went live in 2025, the first on June 1, 2025. Cameras recording at least one violation went from 162 in May 2025 to 211 in December 2025.

The Illinois Policy Institute, which describes itself as a nonpartisan research organization and "the strongest voice for taxpayers in the state," and says it believes the best policies limit the power of government, reported that Mayor Brandon Johnson added 50 speed cameras in 2025, and that this led to a nearly 26 percent increase in tickets. The city's location file shows 48 locations with a 2025 go-live date; it lists current locations only, so the two figures may count differently.

Because cameras were added and removed over time, the total alone mixes driver behavior with the size of the network. Dividing each month's violations by the cameras that reported that month gives a rough per-camera rate.

Source: City of Chicago Data Portal, Speed Camera Violations (hhkd-xvj4); calculation by RecordingLaw. Cameras reporting in a month are a proxy for cameras in service.

Per-camera violations went from 220.1 in February 2021 to 2,362.9 in March 2021. The rate rose in 2020 as well, before the change: fewer cameras reported during the pandemic (as few as 70 a month), while those that did recorded more violations each. Summer months run higher in most years, so the table compares August with August. Before 2021, fewer cameras recorded violations in summer (96 to 110 in August from 2015 to 2019, versus 146 to 161 in April and May), so the 2019 figure divides by a smaller set of cameras than later years.

What news reports and a policy group say about tickets and revenue

The open data does not separate warnings from tickets, does not split violations into the 6 to 10 mph and 11 mph-plus bands, and does not include revenue. Those figures come from secondhand sources, attributed here by name. They are not published city datasets.

ABC7 Chicago. The station's I-Team, using records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reported that the city made about $77 million from speed cameras in the two years before the 6 to 10 mph rule and about $185.2 million in the two years after. Of the notices in the later period, ABC7 reported, 60 percent were for 6 to 10 mph over, 11 percent for 11 mph or more, and 29 percent were warnings with no cost. ABC7 also reported that CDOT said tickets to drivers going 11 mph or more over had fallen 15 percent since the rule took effect and that drivers overall were slowing down. ABC7 reported that CDOT declined to comment for its story.

Illinois Policy Institute. The Institute reported that Chicago issued 529,529 tickets for 6 to 10 mph over in 2025, up from 424,754 in 2024, and 123,786 tickets for 11 mph or more, up from 94,906. It reported revenue of $64.2 million in 2025, up from $59.6 million in 2024, with $43.2 million from the 6 to 10 mph band and $21.1 million from the 11 mph-plus band. It also reported that revenue fell about $26 million from 2022 to 2024.

The Institute's 2025 ticket counts total 653,315, about 27 percent of the 2,444,752 violations in the city's open data for that year. Neither the Institute nor the city dataset explains the difference.

RecordingLaw did not obtain the city's own Department of Finance figures, so these numbers have not been checked against a primary source.

Serious crashes near cameras and elsewhere

The city's traffic crash dataset records police-reported crashes with injury counts and locations. RecordingLaw counted crashes with at least one fatal or incapacitating injury within 250 meters of the 69 long-running cameras, and compared them with all other located serious crashes in the city, which include crashes near the other cameras.

Source: City of Chicago Data Portal, Traffic Crashes (85ca-t3if) and Speed Camera Violations (hhkd-xvj4); calculation by RecordingLaw. Indexed to 2019 = 100. Near-camera counts are about 40 to 50 a year.

Over the same two-year windows used for violations, serious crashes within 250 meters of the 69 cameras went from 92 (March 2019 to February 2021) to 99 (March 2021 to February 2023). Within 250 meters of any camera in the violations data, they went from 373 to 394. Citywide, they went from 4,055 to 4,327.

These numbers cannot show whether the lower threshold changed crash outcomes. The counts near cameras are small, around 40 to 50 a year, so a change of a few crashes is within normal variation. Cameras sit in children's safety zones near schools and parks, chosen for reasons that may differ from the rest of the city, so the rest of the city is not a matched comparison group. Traffic volumes, pandemic-era driving and other street changes all shifted over the same period. Citywide, traffic deaths had risen to 139 in 2020, 43 more than in 2019, according to CDOT figures reported by Streetsblog Chicago.

ABC7 published its own crash comparison, with larger counts near cameras than RecordingLaw found. Its method and camera list were not published, and RecordingLaw could not reproduce its figures, so they are not repeated here as a result.

How we measured

Violations. Daily violations by camera from the City of Chicago's Speed Camera Violations dataset (hhkd-xvj4), summed by month, July 2014 through August 2026. The dataset ends September 9, 2026, with the latest 14 days withheld, so September 2026 is excluded. The city describes the dataset as containing all violations regardless of whether a citation was issued, so these are not ticket or revenue counts.

Comparison windows. "Before" is March 2019 through February 2021; "after" is March 2021 through February 2023. These match the windows ABC7 used. The "before" window includes the pandemic, when traffic patterns changed, and January to February 2021, when warning notices for the new band had begun, though the daily counts show no increase when they began.

Fixed camera set. The 69 cameras that recorded at least one violation in at least 45 of the 48 months from March 2019 to February 2023. This holds the camera count roughly constant but leaves out cameras installed or removed in other years, including the 2025 additions.

Cameras reporting. The count of distinct cameras with at least one violation in a month. It is a proxy for cameras in service, not an official installed count, and it dips when cameras are offline or seasonally inactive (116 in July 2022, 174 in July 2026). Of the camera IDs in the violations data, 27 do not appear in the city's current location file (4i42-qv3h), which lists 209 locations.

Crashes. From the city's Traffic Crashes dataset (85ca-t3if), crashes with at least one fatal or incapacitating injury and a recorded location, measured by straight-line distance to each camera. The dataset covers police-reported crashes, has citywide data beginning in September 2017, and excludes interstates and some boundary roads. Recent years may be revised as reports are finalized, so 2025 is left out of the chart and table.

What the data cannot show. It cannot separate warnings from tickets, the 6 to 10 mph band from the 11 mph-plus band, or show revenue. It cannot attribute any change in crashes to the threshold, because placement is not random and there is no matched control group. The City Council journal and the Municipal Code section for the 2021 change were not retrieved; only the March 1, 2021 effective date is from a city source.

For how other states and cities run speed and red-light cameras, see traffic camera ticket laws by state.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Chicago start ticketing at 6 mph over?

CDOT says that effective March 1, 2021, the city began issuing $35 tickets to drivers going 6 to 10 mph over the speed limit in active Children's Safety Speed Enforcement Zones. Warning notices for that band were mailed starting in mid-January 2021.

How much is a Chicago speed camera ticket?

According to CDOT, the fine is $35 for 6 to 10 mph over the posted limit and $100 for 11 mph or more over. A vehicle owner's first violation in a zone gets a warning notice.

How many more violations did cameras record after the change?

City data shows 1,616,812 recorded violations from March 2019 to February 2021 and 6,026,692 from March 2021 to February 2023, about 3.7 times as many. These counts include violations that did not become tickets.

How much revenue do Chicago speed cameras bring in?

The city's open data does not include revenue. ABC7 Chicago, using FOIA records, reported about $77 million in the two years before March 2021 and about $185.2 million in the two years after. The Illinois Policy Institute, a group that says it favors policies that limit the power of government, reported $64.2 million in 2025 and $59.6 million in 2024. RecordingLaw did not verify these against city Finance records.

Did serious crashes go down near speed cameras?

Near 69 long-running cameras, fatal or incapacitating-injury crashes went from 92 in the two years before the change to 99 in the two years after. Citywide they went from 4,055 to 4,327. The counts near cameras are small and the comparison does not control for road type, traffic or where cameras were placed, so it cannot show whether the change affected safety.

Why did violations rise in 2025?

The number of cameras recording violations went from 162 in May 2025 to 211 in December 2025, and the city's location file lists 48 locations that went live in 2025. Among 69 cameras that operated throughout, violations fell about 21 percent from 2024 to 2025.