This Lawyer Spent Years Fighting His $100 D.C. Speeding Ticket

When Matt Ricciardi was caught on camera speeding along a stretch of D.C. Route 295, he could simply have paid the $100 ticket and gone on with his life. Instead, the D.C.-based attorney chose a far lengthier route: He appealed, and appealed again, and appealed once more after that.

The decision paid off. In May, the D.C. Court of Appeals — the city’s highest court — tossed out his speeding ticket on a novel technicality, ending a three-year legal odyssey. But the ruling also opened the door for potentially thousands of other drivers to contest tickets handed out by the city’s many speed cameras.

“The case wasn’t about the $100 citation,” Ricciardi said. “I pursued it because I believed that the District was wrongly citing tens of thousands of area drivers at a higher speed than it could prove.”

Ricciardi’s case taps into a daily challenge for many area motorists: navigating the District’s extensive network of traffic cameras, more than 500 of them, which catch drivers speeding, running red lights, blocking bus-only lanes or illegally passing stopped school buses.

Proponents argue that the cameras are a key tool in improving roadway safety for pedestrians and cyclists, while critics — including House Republicans, who have tried to ban the city’s use of the cameras — say they’re a money grab. From October 2024 to September 2025 — the last fiscal year for which full data is available — the city’s traffic cameras led to more than 3.3 million tickets, and took in more than $257 million in fines.

When Ricciardi first got the speeding ticket in the mail in April 2023, he saw he was cited for driving 61 miles per hour with a speed limit of 50. The city’s speed cameras — of which there are more than 200 — traditionally flag a driver that is 11 miles over the posted limit. Fines start at $100 and increase according to designated ranges — $150 for 16-20 and so on.

Ricciardi’s successful argument against his ticket revolved around the flaws in that formula. His fight was aided by his knowledge of the law and a background in computer programming.

“I recognized instantly that the speed measurements can’t be perfectly accurate. There has to be some margin of error,” he said. “That prompted me to look at the [camera’s] deployment log, which had the margin of error, and to look at what the District’s burden of proof was. It was the technical recognition that there was a margin of error problem that kicked it off.”

Ricciardi found that D.C.’s speed cameras have a margin of error of plus or minus 1 mph and that the city needs “clear and convincing evidence” that a driver was speeding to issue a ticket. Ricciardi didn’t contest that he may have been driving above the posted speed limit of 50. But he argued that the camera’s margin of error meant that the city couldn’t actually prove he was going 61 miles an hour as claimed. He could just as well have been driving 60.

From October 2024 to September 2025, D.C.'s traffic cameras led to more than 3.3 million tickets, and took in more than $257 million in fines. Kainaz Amaria/NOTUS

His argument didn’t convince an appeal officer at the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles, nor did it later sway the Traffic Adjudication Appeals Board. It did, however, win over a judge in D.C. Superior Court, at least temporarily — that decision was reversed when the city appealed it. And so he found himself arguing his case to the Court of Appeals in late November 2025, 31 months after he received the ticket. On May 7, the high court took his side.

“The District did not present clear and convincing evidence that Ricciardi was traveling 61 mph or above because its evidence showed only that he was traveling between 60 and 62 mph, making it just as likely that he was traveling beneath the 61 mph threshold as above it,” wrote Associate Judge Joshua Deahl, dismissing the ticket and $100 fine.

Ricciardi’s win is noteworthy, but so too is the simple fact that he got as far as the Court of Appeals. When the court heard a similar case in 2022, it noted that such challenges to tickets from D.C.’s traffic cameras are “vanishingly rare.”

Data from the DMV bears that out — only 15% of D.C. traffic camera tickets are regularly appealed, largely because the grounds for appeal can be limited and, Ricciardi said, the process can be opaque.

“There’s probably people lost in the process,” he said. “I had an advantage being an attorney doing litigation, but an average driver might be intimidated. It’s not a user-friendly process.”

In a statement, the D.C. Department of Transportation — which runs the traffic cameras — said the ruling in Ricciardi’s case was largely the case of regulations that haven’t kept pace with the technology. According to an official, the cameras actually have a much smaller margin of error than they did when they were first rolled out almost two decades ago.

“[Traffic camera] enforcement continues to be an effective tool for reducing dangerous driving and improving compliance with posted speed limits,” the official said. “DDOT is reviewing regulatory and administrative changes to accurately reflect the current state of operations and standards.”

Ward 6 Council member Charles Allen, who chairs the Council’s transportation committee, said that despite their unpopularity, the cameras are important for keeping the city safe.

Only 15% of D.C. traffic camera tickets are regularly appealed, largely because the grounds for appeal can be limited. Kainaz Amaria/NOTUS

“Nobody likes to get a ticket,” Allen said. “The overwhelming majority of people when they get one they change their behavior and drive safer. And that’s what it’s gotta be about. We’ve got to be able to have the tools to do enforcement for these repeated dangerous drivers who don’t seem to give a damn.”

Ricciardi said he wasn’t trying to make a broader case about the merits of traffic cameras, but rather hoped to ensure tickets and fines are assessed fairly.

“It was never my motivation to get out of the ticket and I don’t want the case to encourage people to drive recklessly, and I don’t think the decision encourages that,” he said. “The court didn’t say speed cameras are invalid, they said if you’re at the bottom of the [speed] range the District needs to charge the lower one.”

On a practical level, that means that a driver caught going 16 mph over the speed limit and fined $150 could now argue that margin of error would have put them at 15 over, qualifying them for a $100 fine instead. Or, like Ricciardi, a driver fined $100 for going 11 mph over the limit could argue that they shouldn’t be fined at all. Data shows that might be a large group: In 2025, there were 1.9 million tickets issued to drivers going between 11 and 15 mph over the speed limit.

In the wake of the ruling, other lawyers have taken notice.

“I’m a little jealous of Mr. Ricciardi for thinking of the argument,” said Randy Chen, an attorney with class-action firm Migliaccio & Rathod in D.C., which has started investigating and seeking potential clients for a case linked to problems with the city’s traffic cameras.

“I’m actually all for traffic enforcement. I hate it when people blow through stop signs or speed,” Chen said. “There’s nuance here. You can be in support of traffic enforcement and also hold the government to fairness principles.”

Ricciardi said his $100 fine has been reimbursed by D.C., but he is waiting on $166 in court fees. In the meantime, there have even been some plaudits.

“A [man] I don’t know sent me an e-mail thanking me,” Ricciardi said. “He got his own D.C. speed camera ticket dismissed based on my case.”