CHICAGO – A review by the Chicago Tribune reveals city traffic cameras may have erroneously issued as many as 110,000 traffic tickets for school speed zone violations, amounting to $4 million, over the last two years.

The news site conducted a six-month investigation into Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s speed camera program, with a specific focus on alleged school zone violations, and found a lot of motorists are being ticketed when they shouldn’t be.

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“Since it was first launched in October 2013, the city’s ‘Children’s Safety Zone’ program has issued more than 2.1 million tickets at 146 cameras near parks and schools throughout the city, most of them warnings,” the Tribune reports.

“The 72 cameras placed around 28 Chicago schools have generated nearly 500,000 tickets and nearly $19 million in fines, records show.”

The problem is, many of the alleged infractions, aren’t violations at all, and hearing officers are throwing them out by the droves.

State law limits school zone infractions to the school day – from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m. – and only when a child is present. The law specifically states the tickets can be issued only “on a school day when school children are present and so close thereto that a potential hazard exits because of the close proximity to motorized traffic.”

But officials with the city and its traffic camera vendor, American Traffic Solutions, apparently use a broader interpretation than state law permits, resulting in tickets issued during summer months when schools appear to be closed, when adults are in the picture and not school children, or when children are not in danger because of the traffic.

In August alone, as many as 13,000 tickets were issued that relied on a stroller as evidence of a child present, but judges have thrown many of the tickets out because a stroller doesn’t fit the law’s definition of “school children.”

The Tribune reports 62,000 tickets were also issued to motorists this summer, when schools appeared closed.

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“I think they are counting on people not fighting these tickets, and it makes me mad,” 30-year-old single mom Lasheena Hall told the news site.

Hall received two tickets because camera allegedly caught her speeding outside of two different schools on two different days this summer, and she appealed the infractions. A hearing officer dismissed both because they were not “on school days when school children are present.”

“There were no kids around. I didn’t see any kids,” she said. “The judge didn’t see any kids.”

In August, when the Tribune first highlighted concerns about the traffic cameras, city officials refined the program, and halted tickets issued when strollers or a child in an adult’s arms are present. But problems still plague the system, and hearing officers continue to toss tickets that don’t hold up to state law.

The Tribune secured notes from hearing officers in 2,400 successfully appealed school tickets, and difficulty in identifying a school child in the traffic photo was repeatedly cited for dismissing the tickets.

In some cases, the ticketed motorist provided an excuse for their actions, but the hearing officer provided a better, legally justified reason they weren’t at fault.

“Respondent rebuts that she was in a hurry to get somewhere due to her children. This is not a valid defense,” one hearing officer wrote. “However, photographs do not show children present in 20 mph school safety zone. Great weight given to the respondent.”

“Review of both still and video pictures shows that only one individual is present and size of individual is such that it is more probable than not that he is not a child and particularly not a child who would attend the elementary school within the safety zone,” another hearing officer wrote.

The Tribune reports a total of 105 tickets have also been dismissed because school was not in session when they were issued.

“You’re driving along and the school looks completely abandoned, but those cameras are still clicking away. It’s outrageous,” said retired school teacher Robert Craig, who appealed a ticket issued in July near Prosser High School.

“This has nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with fleecing the little guy for everything they can,” he said.

All in all, only about 1 in 50 school zone tickets are appealed, but roughly a quarter of those have been dismissed by hearing officers, which suggests “many drivers missed an opportunity to challenge invalid tickets,” according to the site.