CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – As 12 Senate Republicans are sponsoring a bill to ban cameras that monitor speeding and red-violations in Iowa, the Cedar Rapids police chief said getting rid of the cameras will only revert driver behavior back to the speeding traffic throughout the city.

“The system works,” said police chief Greg Graham, in an interview on Friday afternoon at Cedar Rapids police headquarters. “To take it away is ludicrous.”

According to Rod Boshart’s SourceMedia Post on February 3, Senate File 129 would “impose a statewide prohibition on the use of automated traffic enforcement systems and would provide for the termination of existing systems like the ones that monitor Interstate 380 for speeding violations in Cedar Rapids…”

In other words, the money that Cedar Rapids has collected from 58,000+ citations would end. The company that installed the cameras, GATSO USA, collects $30 from each violation. The police department gets the rest of the money, usually $45 on the common $75 violations, for its general fund. As of December 2010, GATSO has collected about $1 million, with $1.5 returning to the city.

Graham has maintained, for months, that driver behavior has changed in Cedar Rapids for the better.

“Our studies show that 99% of the people who drive through Cedar Rapids abide by the law and the average speed is 55.3 miles per hour,” Graham said about the traffic on I-380, where the speed limit is 55. “1% of the driving population that drives through Cedar Rapids is up in arms because they are being held accountable.”

Sen. Brad Zaun (R-Urbandale) is one of the 12 Republican senators and the bill’s lead sponsor. Boshart’s article reported Zaun said Thursday he had heard “numerous complaints” from people in his Senate district about the traffic cameras for months. Yet he also got a Cedar Rapids speeding citation in the mail for a vehicle in his name but that one of his sons was driving at the time.

Graham, as the police chief, said he has been in a similar situation.

“All the cars I own are in my name,” said Graham. “I got a ticket. My son was driving that car. Who paid the ticket? My kid paid that ticket. I didn’t pay it. Whoever it is, is upset their kid got a ticket. They need to hold their kid accountable.”

Brandon Jolly, of Hiawatha, said he has gotten three speeding citations in the mail from Cedar Rapids. He owns up to all of the tickets and his issue isn’t with enforcing the law but when a person finds out they committed a crime.

“I know it really bothered me that it was six weeks after the fact,” Jolly said of his first citation. “Having that police officer at your window sits with people deeper and getting a ticket in the mail frustrates people. Their behavior changes for the wrong reasons.”

Yet Graham insists behavior, on the roads in Cedar Rapids, has changed dramatically. He pointed to no deadly crashes in the “S-curve” on I-380 since the cameras went live.

“We are going to go back to two fatalities a year in the S-curve,” said Graham if the cameras are banned.

He also pointed to this week’s snowstorm. Instead of dozens of crashes, as in previous major weather events, Graham said his staff was not spending dozens of hours sorting out wreckage.

“This last storm, which was worst than all of the other ones, we only worked eight crashes. You tell me traffic habits haven’t changed.”