Cedar Rapids Weather
CRPD Radar Car Catches Hundreds of SpeedersBy Justin Foss, Reporter
CEDAR RAPIDS – The newest tool to catch speeders in Cedar Rapids is working, maybe a little too well. In just less than three hours of work, the police department’s radar car caught about 300 speeders.
It’s so effective the police department didn’t want us to show it to you. Officers told us they’re afraid vandals will attack the vehicle while it lies in wait for speeders. It slows people down by issuing fines that don't go on driving records. Those fines are less than the total cost of a speeding ticket issued by an officer. However, the fines aren’t minimal. They are recorded in the attached computer and sent to the same company the red light cameras are run through. An officer will review each violation and decide if they should write a fine for it. Then, the contractor will mail out the paperwork to the owner of the violating vehicle. If you're wondering if there's a speeding problem in Cedar Rapids, when the officers put the cameras out on 76th Avenue near College Community Schools on Tuesday morning, they caught 167 speeders in just an hour. Officers will only issue warnings from those violations because it came as a testing day. Sgt. Cristy Hamblin with the Cedar Rapids Police Department said this is as much an awareness tool as it is a traffic control tool. When asked if people realized how many speeders the city has, she said, “I don't think a lot of people do." On Wednesday officers set the unit on Interstate 380 and caught 220 speeders in just an hour and a half. Many of those drivers could see fines come to them in the mail in the next week, however, officers told us they haven’t decided if the first official say of operation will result in fines or warnings. While some of the violations will most likely be met with cynicism for only being a few miles over the limit, some of the initial violation they found were 35 miles an hour over the limit. One was 50 in a 25, which was a school zone. Another was 90 in a 65, which was on the interstate. The vehicle isn’t marked, and looks nothing like a regular patrol car. Officers said it won’t sit on the side of the road in a dangerous place. Sometimes, they said, it could be sitting in a parking lot that overlooks a road or sits next to a road. It does work on every kind of vehicle. Just in our 15 minute interview in the police parking lot, we had a speeder too. "Those flash of light? That's because that squad car that just went by was over the limit I have this set on,” said Officer Robert Murphy. “I have it set fairly low here.” For the record, the setting on the camera was below the actual speed limit in the parking lot in order to demonstrate the tool. However, the offending officer didn’t drive by for demonstration. More Good Stuff |
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