Starting tomorrow (August 1), New Orleans drivers will need to mind their speeds near schools.
City officials will reactivate the speed cameras in the school zones. While some New Orleans schools will be reopening tomorrow, the vast majority won't be opening for another week or two. That raises questions about the validity of some of the tickets that will be issued.
According to New Orleans City Ordinance 154-534 school zone regulations "shall only apply on days when a school that the zone applies to is open for instruction during the regular term." WWL All Things Legal host Doug Sunseri says that would make any school zone violation issued before a school opens invalid.
"I don't believe they would have a legal right to enforce any tickets given while a school was not giving instruction," Sunseri said. "From a legal standpoint, they have no authority to do it. So, if you are cited, you have a legal basis not to pay the ticket--to contest it."
Sunseri says anyone who appeals their ticket would have solid legal grounds to contest it. That leaves him wondering why the city would attempt to enforce speed zones outside the bounds of the law.
"It's perplexing to me that the city would ticket citizens or residents or drivers who are driving through school zones when schools are not in session and try to cite them for a violation that did not occur," Sunseri said. "I don't know if that's the city counting on people (to pay the fines). Maybe we'll turn it on, and if they get cited when school's not in session, so be it. We think most of the people will not contest it. We think they'll either pay it or, if they don't pay it, then they'll have to pay accelerated fines. Seems sort of third-world to me, but it's definitely not proper."
Sunseri notes that this is another example of city officials ignoring the law--even their own.
"It seems that the city is just thumbing its nose at the residents and saying: look, we're going to ticket you whether school is in session or not."
We sent an email to City Hall's communication's office and to a city attorney asking for why the city is activating all school zone cameras on August 1 instead of activating cameras based on each school's start date. Mayor Cantrell's press secretary, John Lawson, II, responded with the following statement:
"Individual cameras will not start giving tickets until the relevant start of the school year, meaning if a school started classes Aug. 10, that would be the first day you could get a school zone ticket there. However, it is not harmful to have these still on, as it is always the best practice to have slower traffic on main roads and for the public to be aware of the school zones and their exact locations."
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