COLUMBUS, Ohio—Members of a Senate panel got their first look Tuesday at legislation that would impose an almost total ban on red-light cameras in Ohio.

Reps. Ron Maag and Dale Mallory, the Cincinnati-area sponsors of House Bill 69, said the cameras were meant to help generate revenue, not promote public safety.

"This situation has already spun far out of control," Mallory said.

The legislation would only allow cameras to be used to enforce 20-mile-per-hour speed limits in school zones. In those cases, a local law enforcement officer would have to be present.

The debate over traffic cameras has pitted law-enforcement officials, who say the devices make roads safer, against civil-rights advocates who believe such monitoring is intrusive and only serves as a money-maker for cash-strapped municipalities.

More than a dozen Ohio cities have traffic camera programs, including Cleveland, Akron, East Cleveland, Parma and Parma Heights.

In Cleveland, 34 traffic cameras have been set up during the past six years, generating more than $47 million in fines and fees, including $6 million in 2012.

Proponents of traffic cameras said Ohio cities using the devices have seen their streets become safer.

As of 2012, Columbus saw a 74-percent reduction in right-angle crashes and a 25-percent drop in rear-end crashes at intersections with cameras, for example, while crash rates in Parma Heights have fallen by more than half in areas under surveillance, according to data collected by the nonprofit Traffic Safety Coalition.

The effort to ban traffic cameras in Ohio stems in part from a lawsuit filed against Elmwood Place, a village of 2,000 people surrounded by Cincinnati, which during a two-week span last year collected $1.5 million in fines from 20,000 speeders along a single block.

A judge blocked Elmwood Place from using the cameras, then found the village and the company operating the cameras in contempt after the devices weren't taken down. The mayor of Elmwood Place resigned last week.