BALTIMORE -- Automated speed cameras, installed around area schools three years ago to catch dangerous drivers and make the streets safer for children, have caught hundreds of school buses speeding near the schools they serve, often with children aboard, a Baltimore Sun analysis has found.

Privately owned school buses have received at least 800 automated speed citations in Baltimore City, while city-owned buses have accumulated more than 50, the newspaper reported.

And Baltimore County public school buses have triggered speed cameras more than 100 times over the past two years.

The $40 tickets are issued only to vehicles recorded driving at least 12 mph over the speed limit.

More than two dozen school buses were clocked 20 mph or more over the limit in the city, including one that hit 74 mph one afternoon in February near the Poly-Western High School campus.

Protecting school children was a key justification when the Maryland General Assembly voted three years ago to allow speed cameras statewide.

In addition to highway work zones, the devices are permitted in designated school zones, defined in the law as being within a half-mile of a school.

Officials at both the city and the county school systems say it is unacceptable for buses to speed.

Using partial speed camera data provided by City Hall, The Sun identified 122 citations that were issued to privately owned buses that have each gotten five or more tickets. School district officials checked their records and found that 96 of the violations occurred with children on board.

Barber Transportation Inc. buses got 24 of those tickets.

Company representative Veronica Robinson expressed surprise at the numbers, saying Barber monitors tickets its drivers receive.

"Anything that goes beyond two, they're reprimanded and they lose their [bus] run," she told The Sun. The most that any driver has gotten was four, she said, and "hes no longer working here."

A Barber bus that has gotten 15 citations, at least eight while students were aboard, is a "spare bus and is driven by numerous drivers," Robinson said.

On Jan. 13, a camera detected that bus going 57 mph in a 25 mph zone not far from Yorkwood Elementary School.

Rams Bus Service owner Karen Vora questioned school system figures showing four of her company's buses amassed a combined 25 speed camera tickets with students aboard (and five more with none aboard).

Asked about the tickets, she said none of her drivers have gotten more than two, and she said her six or seven current drivers rotate driving duties among the buses.

Any speed camera ticket is unacceptable, Vora said: "Whether there are kids or not, they should not be speeding - thats the bottom line."

Representatives of several other companies whose buses got tickets declined to comment or did not return calls.