Red Light Cameras in Sarasota: Locations, Notices & Contesting

If a camera catches your car running a red light in Sarasota, you’ll get a Notice of Violation in the mail with a $158 fine and 60 days to pay it, submit an affidavit, or request a hearing. Red light cameras in Sarasota operate under Florida’s Mark Wandall Traffic Safety Program, which means the ticket costs money but adds no points to your license and cannot be used to raise your insurance rates.¹

What the Notice of Violation Looks Like

The registered owner receives the notice by mail within 30 days of the incident. It shows the date, time, and intersection, the vehicle description and plate, and a Violation ID with an Access PIN that lets you log into the vendor’s online portal to watch the photos and video.

Before you decide anything, watch the footage. It’s the single most useful thing you can do, because it tells you whether you actually entered the intersection on red, whether you rolled a right turn, or whether the light was still yellow when you crossed the stop line. A violation only occurs when your vehicle enters the intersection after the signal turns steady red.¹ If you entered on yellow, that’s not a violation.

Points, Insurance, and Your Driving Record

This is the part most people want confirmed. Under Florida law, a red light camera violation may not be used for driver license record maintenance, may not be assessed as points under the state’s point system, and may not be used to raise your auto insurance rates.¹ That protection holds whether you pay the initial $158 notice or the case escalates to a Uniform Traffic Citation later. It’s a financial hit, not a record hit.

Paying the Fine

The initial fine is $158.¹ You pay it using the Violation ID and Access PIN on the notice, through the online portal (credit or debit card), by phone, or by mailing a check or money order to the address on the document. Pay within 60 days and the matter is closed.

How to Contest It

Here is where people go wrong. You do not contest a Notice of Violation through the Sarasota Clerk of the Circuit Court. The Clerk only handles Uniform Traffic Citations, which come later if the notice is ignored. To contest the NOV itself, follow the instructions printed on it; those instructions route you to the camera program vendor.²

A hearing request has to be made within 60 days of the notification date.¹ If the hearing officer upholds the violation and you still don’t pay, the case is forwarded to the Clerk as a UTC with a higher penalty.

Situations Where the Owner Is Not Liable

Florida law lists specific circumstances that get the registered owner off the hook:¹

Someone else was driving. You submit an affidavit identifying the driver by name, address, date of birth, and driver license number if you have it. That person can then be issued their own notice.
You entered the intersection to yield to an emergency vehicle.
Your vehicle was part of a funeral procession.
A law enforcement officer directed you through the red light.
An officer at the scene already issued you a traffic citation for the same violation.
The registered owner was deceased on or before the date of the citation.
The vehicle was stolen; the affidavit must include the police report.

The affidavit is due within 30 days of the citation. A false affidavit is a second-degree misdemeanor under Florida law, so name a driver only if you know it was them.¹

Right Turns on Red

Right on red is legal in Florida, but only after a complete stop before the stop line, crosswalk, or point nearest the intersecting roadway.³ Rolling the turn is exactly what these cameras are built to catch. Watch too for posted “No Turn on Red” signs, which the statute allows cities to use at specific intersections.

One protection worth knowing: a camera violation cannot be issued if you stopped after crossing the stop line but before turning right, as long as the turn was made carefully and prudently.¹ Stop lines don’t always sit where drivers expect them, and stopping past the line but before the turn is a real defense.

What Happens If You Ignore the Notice

This is the expensive path. Miss the 60-day window and the violation escalates to a Uniform Traffic Citation with a fine of roughly $262 plus court costs and surcharges, and the case moves to the Sarasota Clerk of the Circuit Court.²

The UTC still adds no points and still cannot be used for insurance rate increases.¹ But an unpaid UTC can result in a registration hold on vehicles you own, which shows up the next time you try to renew your tag. Handling the original notice inside the 60-day window is always the cheapest move.

Where the Cameras Are

Sarasota has cameras spread across its busiest corridors, with roughly 30 individual camera approaches as of 2025. The heaviest coverage is along Tamiami Trail (US 41), Washington Boulevard (US 301), Fruitville Road, and Tuttle Avenue, at intersections including US 41 at Bee Ridge Road, US 41 at University Parkway, US 301 at Fruitville Road, and Fruitville at Beneva. Many of these intersections have cameras aimed at multiple directions of travel, so a single crossing can have northbound, southbound, and westbound cameras running at once.⁴ The city adds locations over time, so check the Sarasota Police Department’s current list rather than trusting an older one.

1
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 316.0083 – Mark Wandall Traffic Safety Program
2
Sarasota Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller. Red Light Camera Ticket
3
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 316.075 – Traffic Control Signal Devices
4
Sarasota Police Department. Red Light Cameras