$500 for going 7 over? Speed cameras issue tickets in Hilton Head-area neighborhoods
This story has been updated to include additional neighborhoods that have speed cameras.
The Hilton Head area’s natural beauty and serene qualities attract retirees from all over the country looking for a relaxed and worry-free atmosphere.
But some retirees now worry that even a trip to the pharmacy could come with a $500 speeding ticket.
At least five gated communities in the Hilton Head and Bluffton areas are using automatic traffic cameras to enforce speed limits, the Island Packet has learned.
Long Cove Club in Hilton Head, Oldfield in Okatie, and Hampton Lake, Belfair and Berkeley Hall in Bluffton have installed speed cameras that take photo or video evidence when they detect a speeding vehicle.
The penalties for speeding in private communities can be far greater than tickets issued by police officers on public roads, especially for low-level violations.
Under South Carolina law, driving above the posted speed limit but not in excess of 10 miles per hour carries a $15 to $25 fine for the first offense.
Hampton Lake covenants reviewed by the Island Packet show that the first speeding offense results in a $75 fine. The fee escalates to $250 on the second offense and $500 on the third. A speeding notice reviewed by The Packet shows that one woman received a $75 fine for traveling as little as 7 miles per hour over the posted speed limit.
Why are gated communities using speed cameras?
Before installing speed cameras, Hampton Lake security officials were struggling to enforce speed limits, according to a November 2025 update from HL General Manager Adam Martin.
“Our unarmed security team—whose role is to protect and support this community—were too often met with disregard,” Martin wrote. “In several situations, their safety was put at risk when attempting to stop speeding drivers.”
The update has since been removed from Hampton Lake’s website, but still appears in Google searches.
Hampton Lake Community Association owns and maintains 16 miles of private roadways and is responsible for its own enforcement, Martin said in the statement. Under South Carolina law, gated communities are responsible for their own traffic enforcement unless the owner consents to public enforcement.
In the first 30 days, the cameras issued 270 tickets to people traveling more than 25% over the speed limit. The statement does not disclose when the enforcement began.
More than half of ticketed offenders were residents of the community, while 27% were guests and 19% were commercial vendors. Speeding violations at monitored locations have decreased by 90% since installing the cameras, Martin said in the statement.
Hampton Lake is also one of a few communities in Beaufort County using the practice of scanning guest IDs at the gate and storing their information for the duration of the pass.
During a previous phone conversation with The Packet, Martin confirmed that Hampton Lake guards scan IDs, but refused to answer any further questions, instead asking for any questions to be sent via email.
The Packet emailed Martin questions about ID scanning and the use of speed cameras, but Martin did not answer the questions. Instead, he responded with a statement saying that all Hampton Lake’s gate access policies and security activities are legal in South Carolina, and that the details of security measures carried out on “private property” are not “public information.”
Although Hampton Lake is a private community, members of the public on Hampton Lake property such as guests and commercial vendors are also subject to speeding fines.
Calls to Gautam Patankar, General Manager at Oldfield, and Mario Campuzano, General Manager at Long Cove Club, were not returned in time for publication.
A security guard at Oldfield previously told The Island Packet that when a guard scans a guest’s driver’s license, their information is stored in a system that connects to the traffic cameras used to enforce speed limits.
Road safety a key concern
A publicly available presentation from a May 2023 security and safety town hall at Long Cove Club revealed that the speed ticketing cameras were installed in part to address pedestrian and cyclist safety.
A lack of sidewalks throughout the community led to pedestrians and cyclists sharing the road with car traffic, according to the presentation. Since 2020, the expensive gated community has seen a significant increase in new homes and full-time residents, leading to more cars and the roads and increasing the potential for accidents.
According to the presentation, officials determined that lowering speed limits, installing speed cameras, putting up more stop signs and “share the road” signs would be more feasible and cost-effective than developing pedestrian and bicyclist infrastructure. A fully paved off-road multi-use pathway would have cost Long Cove $4 million and destroyed hundreds of trees. Developing sidewalks could also require some 40 to 70 homeowners to relinquish portions of their land to Long Cove Club, which could lead to lawsuits.
Eight speed cameras were installed in Long Cove, according to the report.
Willie Rice, chief of security at Long Cove, previously told The Island Packet about the speed cameras, but said that the guards do not scan IDs at the gate. In a recent call, Rice informed The Packet he will need to discuss with the general manager before sharing any further information; The Packet has not heard back from either in time for inclusion in this article.
Who pays the fine?
In Hampton Lake, a fine issued by an automated traffic camera is posted to the account of the resident that issued the guest pass.
That means that at the end of the day, the homeowner is responsible for paying the fine.
Why not issue the fine to the guest directly? In his statement, Martin argued that because community-issued speeding violations aren’t reported to the Department of Motor Vehicles and do not affect drivers’ records, guests have “little incentive to pay.”
He added that it “would currently cause significant disruptions at our gates if we had to monitor every guest entering to determine whether they have an outstanding citation.” The community is looking at “upgraded gate technology that will allow us to better hold owners’ guests responsible by restricting entry based on previous citations,” he wrote.
If guests at Hampton Lake go to the gatehouse and pay the fine directly, the security team will remove the fine from the sponsoring owner’s account, according to Martin’s statement.
If a commercial vendor — such as an electrician, plumber or cleaner — enters Hampton Lake using a “guest” pass and is caught speeding, the homeowner who called in the pass would be responsible for the fine. If their entry pass was issued specifically as a vendor pass, however, they are responsible for their own fines, according to the statement.
‘I’m not paying’
Some residents of Hampton Lake have expressed frustration and confusion with the rollout of the new speed cameras.
In an interview with The Island Packet, Hampton Lake resident Alexandra Abbott said there was an initial grace period, where residents received warnings, but alleges that HL management “did not make it clear” when the grace period ended.
Abbott provided a copy on an email from Martin dated Sep. 25 announcing that the speed cameras were live and recording violators. In the email, Martin stated that there would be a “brief grace period” in which the security team would waive fines “on all but egregious violations,” but the email does not state how long the grace period would be.
Abbott has been fined for speeding in Hampton Lake three times. The first, dated Oct. 17, she received when she thought it was still the grace period. The second, Abbott said she had been following a security guard and not paying attention to her speed. When she was fined a third time, the email she received did not have any attached evidence, such as a photo of her vehicle or the location of the incident.
“I’m not paying any of them,” Abbott said firmly.
About two weeks after The Packet’s interview with Abbott, Hampton Lake security waived the third fine, according to copy of an email Abbott provided to The Packet. In the email, Infrastructure and Community Services Manager Shelle Spence said that the team had been experiencing “technological difficulties.”
Residents who don’t pay their fines can lose certain privileges, according to Hampton Lake covenants reviewed by the Packet. If the fines are not paid within 90 days, the Hampton Lake Community Association Board of Directors can impose a lien on the owner’s property, according to the covenants.
Abbot said management disables the RFID tags of residents with outstanding fines, meaning they must stop at the gate each time they enter, rather than the gate opening automatically for them. They also can’t take classes at the gym or take advantage of any amenity that would be charged to their account. If they want to dine at Backwater Bill’s, the community restaurant, they must pay with a credit card and accept a 3% surcharge instead of putting charges on their member account.
Hampton Lake resident Carmel Fauci had recently returned from a trip to Europe when she received a speeding violation for going 32 mph in a 25 mph zone. Fauci provided The Packet with a copy of the notice she received, which said she had been “significantly exceeding” the posted speed limit and that she had been charged a $75 fine to her member account.
Fauci, who is 80 years old, told The Island Packet she hadn’t seen any emails before receiving the notice. “I didn’t know what it was about,” she said.
Confused, Fauci emailed community management, asking them to waive the fine. She did not understand how going 7 miles per hour over the speed limit constituted going “significantly” over the limit.
Martin, the Hampton Lakes GM, explained that doing 32 in a 25 “is like doing 70 [miles per hour] in a 55.”
“Relative to our limit, it is excessive,” Martin wrote.
Fauci said she received a second speeding ticket before she met with the Hampton Lake Covenants Committee. She tried to argue that the first fine should have been a warning, but ultimately had to pay the fines.
If she gets a third offense, she will be charged $500.
“Now I drive 15 miles an hour all over Hampton Lake,” Fauci stated in an email.
This story was originally published February 5, 2026 at 4:30 AM.
