A ticket from one of Arlington’s red light cameras is a $50 civil penalty with no points on your license, no insurance consequences, and no criminal record. The notice goes to whoever owns the vehicle, not necessarily whoever was driving, and you have at least 30 business days from the mailing date to review the footage and decide what to do.
What the Ticket Costs
Virginia caps the fine for a red light camera violation at $50, and state law bars tacking on court costs. Because the violation is civil rather than criminal, a few things that normally follow a traffic ticket don’t apply here:
- No points are added to your Virginia DMV driving record.
- Your auto insurer has no moving-violation record to raise rates against.
- The ticket doesn’t affect drivers on court or DMV probation.
The citation is mailed to the registered owner of the vehicle. If you lent your car out that day, that distinction matters, and there’s a process below for shifting responsibility to the actual driver.
Where Arlington’s Cameras Are
The county’s cameras run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As of the current county listings, they operate at these intersections:
- N. Glebe Rd. at N. Fairfax Dr.
- N. Lynn St. at Langston Blvd.
- Washington Blvd. at Langston Blvd.
- Fort Myer Dr. at Langston Blvd.
- Richmond Hwy. at 23rd Street S.
- Columbia Pike at S. Glebe Rd.
- N. Glebe Rd. at Washington Blvd.
- Columbia Pike at Washington Blvd.
- Langston Blvd. at N. Spout Run Parkway
- 10th Street N. at N. Barton Street
- Langston Blvd. at N. Lynn Street
- Wilson Blvd. at N. Lynn Street
- Langston Blvd. at I-66 Exit 72 offramp
Arlington continues to add locations, with more intersections appearing in Vision Zero planning documents along George Mason Drive, N. Adams Street, and Wilson Blvd. at N. Oak Street. Virginia law requires a conspicuous warning sign within 500 feet of any monitored approach, so a camera intersection should never catch you entirely by surprise.
How Tickets Get Issued
A camera triggering doesn’t automatically produce a ticket. The system captures at least one image of the vehicle before it enters the intersection and one after, focused on the rear plate rather than the driver. A technician at the contracted camera company reviews the footage first to confirm the vehicle actually ran the red and the plate is legible. An Arlington County police officer then independently reviews the evidence and decides whether to issue a citation. If either reviewer finds the evidence unclear, nothing gets mailed.
What to Do When the Notice Arrives
The Notice of Violation includes a notice number and PIN you can use to view the recorded video online before deciding how to respond. Confirm it’s actually your vehicle and that the images show a red-light entry rather than, say, a vehicle already in the intersection when the light changed. You have three options.
Pay the Fine
Arlington’s online portal takes credit cards and e-checks. Credit card payments carry a 2.5% convenience fee (minimum $1.00) charged by the processor. You can also pay by phone at 888-272-9829 using Arlington’s jurisdiction code 1000.
Name the Actual Driver
If someone else was driving, you can submit an affidavit of non-responsibility identifying that person by name and address. This shifts liability to the driver and releases you.
Request a Hearing
You can contest the ticket, which moves the case to the Arlington General District Court as a civil matter. If you mail your response for any of these options, use a tracking method, because a missed deadline narrows what you can do next.
Contesting the Ticket
At the hearing, the county’s evidence is the camera footage along with a sworn certificate from a law-enforcement officer who reviewed it. You then get to challenge that evidence. Grounds people raise include images that don’t clearly identify the vehicle, missing or improperly placed warning signage, and the fact that someone else was driving.
On the driver question, the law presumes the registered owner was behind the wheel, but that presumption is rebuttable. You can file an affidavit with the court clerk before your hearing date or testify under oath at the hearing that you weren’t driving. A stolen-vehicle report filed before the date of the violation defeats the presumption automatically.
If you lose, you can appeal to the circuit court, and the matter stays civil throughout. Because the fine itself is $50 and no court costs can be added, the decision to fight usually comes down to whether you have a real defense or are objecting on principle.
If You Ignore It
The statute doesn’t authorize license suspension or a vehicle registration hold for an unpaid red light camera fine, and no county or state source spells out a specific escalation path like a DMV block or referral to collections. That doesn’t make ignoring the notice safe. An unpaid civil fine can still be pursued through ordinary collection processes, and letting a court-related obligation sit is rarely consequence-free. If you can’t pay right away, call the processing center listed on the notice rather than letting the deadline pass.