Stafford County, VA Mobility & Curb Rules: Red-Light Cameras (2026)

Section 15-29, added by Ordinance No. 1. Each system must capture at least one image of the vehicle before it enters the intersection illegally and at least one after, and the registered owner is liable for a $50 monetary penalty, a cap set by state law that also excludes court costs. A sheriff's deputy must swear to a certificate based on the recorded images, and that certificate is prima facie evidence in any dispute; the registered owner is presumed to be the driver unless he files an affidavit or testifies that someone else was driving, or produces a police report showing the vehicle had been reported stolen before the violation.

Before mailing a summons, the county must give the owner at least 30 business days to inspect the recorded images, and the statute treats the penalty as strictly civil: it is never deemed a conviction, never goes on the driving record, and cannot be used to set insurance rates. Before choosing an intersection, the county has to weigh the accident rate, red-light violation rate, and how hard it is for officers to safely catch violators in person, and it must complete an engineering safety analysis on signal timing, including a yellow phase of at least three seconds and a minimum half-second grace period after the light turns red.

The county must post signs within 500 feet of a monitored intersection's approach, evaluate every camera and signal monthly with public results, and purge a violation's images within 60 days of collecting the penalty, or within two business days if no summons issues within 10 business days.