From Fast Food to Fine Payments: The Rise of Drive-Thru Justice

It’s 2026, and somewhere along the way we decided that justice needed faster service windows. Cobb County has kicked off a novel pilot program: a drive-thru lane for court fine payments  bringing the ease of grabbing a burger or depositing a check to something as serious as the justice system.

You can almost hear the marketing team celebrating: a former bank building on Waddell Street in Marietta (just a couple blocks from the courthouse) now doubles as a “convenience hub” for court matters without ever having to set foot inside the historic building. Officials are calling it a way to cut down on long lines and congestion at the courthouse, where many visitors show up only to pay fines.

To be clear, this isn’t a full-scale overhaul of the legal system. What’s being offered is simple and familiar: drive up, swipe a credit card through a transaction drawer, and walk (or drive) away with your business done. All you need is your case number. No parking hassles. No security lines. Just “justice on the go,” as some local officials like to put it.

There’s something inherently clever about meeting people where they already are especially when “where they are” often involves sitting in line. And given the recent uptick in court traffic in part driven by an explosion of school bus stop camera violations it’s easy to understand why the county would want to decongest its hallways.

But let’s reserve a bit of skepticism too. Convenience doesn’t always equal accessibility especially if all you’re doing is shifting the same obligations into a different queue. And while paying fines from behind the wheel might feel quick, it’s worth asking whether this trend points toward truly modernizing justice or just adding another window to wait at.

Still, if you’ve ever circled a courthouse parking lot questioning why civil processes can’t be, well, a bit more civil, this might feel like a step in the right direction. Critics can argue about what’s next  automated plea agreements? License renewal kiosks? but for now, Cobb County’s drive-thru court has taken what could have been bureaucratic drudgery and turned it into something resembling customer service.