This story was originally published on BreakingVoices on March 23, 2015.

One week after Chicago Public Schools dismissed students for summer, the traffic around Lane Technical High School is still just as busy. A handful of teenagers kick a soccer ball across the freshly mowed lawn while a couple more teenagers walk west toward the McDonald’s on the other side of the street. In addition to the teenagers, pedestrians walk their dogs and jog along the sidewalks.

According to Chicago’s online data pool, the city has 144 speed cameras. Two of those cameras are placed onAddison Street and Western Avenue surrounding Lane Technical High School. The speed camera flashes every five to 10 minutes. Posted signage reminds drivers that the speed limit is 30 miles per hour, but 20 miles per hour “On School Days When Children Are Present.”

Drivers are confused about the signage and the law when they pass this high school. Are the cameras flashing so often because people are actually driving over 30 miles per hour? Are they flashing because there are school children present along the roadways?

This confusion about speed cameras, is the subject of a class action lawsuit, Maschek v. City of Chicago, that attorney Jacie Zolna of Myron M. Cherry & Associates filed against the City of Chicago. The plaintiff, Ken Maschek, was issued a speeding ticket by the camera on Addison Street in front of Lane Technical on a day he did not believe the safety zone speed limits were in effect.

Maschek, a resident of the Wrigleyville neighborhood, received the citation in July. With two young boys, five and three years old, Maschek was under the impression that school was not in session, because his boys were not in school.

“According to the data available on the City’s website, there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 violations issued just this past summer” and those violations were issued via speed cameras in Chicago says Zolna.

When asked about speed cameras, some Roscoe Village residents express a disdain for them.

Kim Kotars of Lincoln Square said, “They’re a way for Rahm to pad his pockets.” She believes that the City should return to the “old fashion” way of enforcing speed limits with police officers issuing tickets instead of speed cameras.

Arlie Nuetzel, of Roscoe Village, said the speed cameras are ‘hard to see,’ which causes problems on the road. Chris Bedford, also from Roscoe Village, said, “They ticket people unfairly.”

The Illinois Vehicle Code grants Chicago legal authority to operate speed cameras. However, according to this piece of legislation, these cameras can only run on school days in designated safety zones, such as schools and parks.

Zolna said, “The main backing of our case is that Illinois law defines exactly what constitutes a school day and it specifically excludes summer school. But from a layman’s perspective, it’s just common sense what constitutes a school day.”

With a run-off mayoral election underway, the issue of speed cameras has become a concern in Chicago. Neither of the two candidates were available for comment on the case, but both Rahm Emanuel and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia have expressed opinions on the cameras in the past.

The incumbent, Emanuel, fully supports the speed cameras, although he recently removed 50 red light cameras. Garcia, on the other hand, is not so clear on his opinions regarding the issue and was accused by the Emanuel administration of flip-flopping.

Garcia recently stated that he would remove all cameras if elected. Yet, he has also said that he would leave the cameras in place that are proven to reduce accidents.

According to chicagotogether.org, a website that supports Emanuel for mayor, Garcia accepted a campaign donation from the camera operator—a company called Safespeed LLC that is not associated with the City—last March and later voted in favor of the cameras.

On February 18, 2015 the case went before Judge Mary L. Mikva with Grant Ullrich, assistant corporation counsel for the City, representing the defense.

Ullrich claimed that the City is within its legal rights to operate the speed cameras during the summer months June to September. He cited the dictionary definition of school days as “days when classes are held” and pointed to the fact that classes are in fact held during summer in the form of summer school.

To counter, Zolna argued that the Illinois School Code designates a school day as one of the 178 days between June and August when 50 percent of the student population is at school and there are five hours or more of educational instruction. According to Zolna, Illinois law should take precedence over any dictionary definition.

Although Mikva agreed “that summer school is not the school year,” she was not able to rule in favor of the counsel and instead accepted the City’s definition of a school day.

On the following day, Feb. 19, Zolna filed an appeal of Mikva’s decision. The case will now go to Illinois’ appellate courts.

While Zolna often references Illinois’ various legal texts in his case, he said, “It’s not just Illinois law… it also has to do with notice and common sense.” Zolna claims that members of the general public are confused about the speed cameras, when they are operating and when the posted speed limits are actually in effect.

David Nierline, of Roscoe Village, dislikes the speed cameras, calling them “revenue generators.” He said, “The signage is very vague… I wouldn’t know how to know when summer school classes are being held.”

On the other hand, Jim Clementi, from Roscoe Village, said, “I’m okay with them. They are a good way to make money for the City.” After learning about the lawsuit, Clementi agreed that the City should be allowed to operate the speed cameras in the summer. However, he believes that the current law does not provide that right.

Clementi said, “a school day would be during the school year,” and that the City should make the law more clear.

The case focuses on summer and tickets issued during the summer months, but the problem is actually much larger. Chicago makes data related to speed cameras available online through its data portal, although, according to Zolna, the City has taken down and edited certain things since the case received publicity in the past month.

Before the information was changed, Zolna said he noticed “there were tickets issued on Labor Day last year… and there were also some violations recorded on Thanksgiving break this past year.” This shows that the speed cameras were operating and ticketing on days when Chicago Public Schools were not actually in session and, since they were holidays, classes were not held.

Bedford agreed with Clementi’s opinion of what a school day is and added that it is “not summer school or after school programs.”

Nierline does not seem to care whether or not a given day is considered to be a school day, “I don’t think they should be running at all… It’s a robot, and people are bothered by that. If you really take safety seriously, then put more cops out when school is in session.”

“Although this law is supposed to be for safety, the bottom line is that the Illinois legislature made a decision as to when these cameras could run… If this law was truly about safety, they would have put no restriction on these cameras,” said Zolna.

Until the appeal is brought before a judge, anyone who was issued a ticket on what might or might not have been a school day will still be expected by the City to pay that ticket.