Warnings run through December 4 on Cottman Avenue; then fines start at $100.
If you drive Cottman Avenue past Northeast High School, the grace period is already running.
Speed cameras outside the school, at Cottman Avenue between Glendale and Algon Avenues, began operating on October 5. For now, drivers caught speeding there get a warning in the mail, not a ticket. That warning period runs through December 4, according to the Philadelphia Parking Authority. Once it ends, the fines begin.
The fine schedule comes straight from the PPA: $100 for driving 11 to 19 miles per hour over the posted limit, $125 for 20 to 29 over, and $150 for 30 or more over. Tickets are issued only at 11 or more over the limit, and every violation is reviewed by the PPA and then by the Philadelphia Police Department before anything is mailed.
One detail matters for anyone who drives the stretch daily. The school zone cameras operate only when the school zone flashers are active, during morning and afternoon hours, according to an NBC10 Philadelphia report. City code requires the posted limit to drop to 15 miles per hour while those flashers run. Outside those hours, the school zone cameras are not the ones to worry about.
There is also what the cameras do not do. A camera ticket adds no points to a license, is a civil violation rather than a criminal act, and cannot be used by an insurance company to raise rates, the PPA says. Drivers who want to dispute a ticket can request a hearing through the city’s Office of Administrative Review within 30 days of the notice.
During the warning period itself, drivers caught 11 or more over the limit get a mailed warning with information about the enforcement program and its goal, the PPA says. No fine or penalty comes with those letters. The idea is to give drivers time to get used to the cameras before ticketing starts.
“Our school-zone speed cameras aim to protect students on their way to and from school. It’s a critical matter of public safety and changing dangerous driving behavior,” Gabe Roberts, the PPA’s Acting Executive Director, told NBC10.
Northeast High joins four other active school zone camera sites across the city: John B. Stetson Middle School, Widener Memorial School, High School of the Future, and William L. Sayre High School, according to the Northeast Times. City Council approved the Safe Streets for Students Act in April 2025, authorizing cameras at Northeast High and six other zones as part of a five-year pilot authorized by state law. The PPA says it chose sites using crash and traffic data from 2019 through 2023, looking for concentrations of serious injuries, pedestrian crashes, and speeding.
The program’s track record is the reason the city keeps expanding it. The PPA says speeding tickets on Roosevelt Boulevard dropped 93 percent since automated enforcement began there in June 2020, and fatal and serious-injury crashes have also declined.
For Cottman Avenue drivers, the practical message is simple. The cameras are already watching, the warnings are free, and they stop being free after December 4.
