Traffic Cameras Get Support from Muscatine Police, City Officials
Radar-enabled speed cameras are attached to a sign post as traffic moves along northbound Interstate 380 near the Diagonal Dr. SW exit on Friday, May 21, 2010, in Cedar Rapids. The cameras will record speeders and issue a ticket for the infraction. (Jim Slosiarek/SourceMedia Group News)
By
Aaron Hepker
Story Created:
Jan 27, 2012 at 4:38 PM CST
Story Updated:
Jan 27, 2012 at 4:38 PM CST
MUSCATINE, Iowa - Muscatine is one of several Iowa cities using the red-light/speeding cameras that a bill approved Wednesday by a House subcommittee in the Legislature would shut off.
City officials and members of the Muscatine Police Department oppose the bill.
“If you don’t violate the law, you shouldn’t worry about the cameras,” police Chief Brett Talkington said Thursday.
Talkington and Assistant Chief Phil Sargent question why a device that has helped reduce accidents and citations would be taken away by the state.
In Muscatine, Sargent said, the cameras take officers away from five busy intersections and put them to better use in other places. Police officers are assigned to review every photo before it is sent out to motorists who have been caught speeding or running red lights.
“Plenty of studies have been done that show these camera result in safer streets for the public and motorists,” Sargent said.
Sargent and Talkington referenced the section on automated traffic enforcement in the Muscatine department’s 2011 annual report. It says the equipment can be used for “license plate recognition, for Amber Alerts and “the video that the system archives has been used multiple times as evidence in court for citations issued due to traffic crashes in the area” near the cameras.
“If the state [legislators] want to set a guideline, then great,” Sargent said. “But local, elected officials should decide if it’s an effective use of technology for the community.”
For the system it chose, the city is charged $27 per ticket by Massachusetts-based Gatso USA, the company that installed the cameras.
The cameras brought in close to $620,000 in 2011, according to the city, which collected almost $407,000.
City Council members Philip Fitzgerald and Jeanette Phillips agree with Sargent’s assessment.
“I think it should be up to the local officials to mandate the cameras,” Fitzgerald said.
“I would say leave it up to the local municipalities to handle because we’re the ones that sign the contract with the companies,” Phillips said.
She said Muscatine signed a three-year contract with Gatso and she says it’s not clear what would happen, legally, if the city is forced to terminate the contract this year.
Fitzgerald said he thinks it’s a bad situation because he knows the cameras have worked in other towns, citing Cedar Rapids as an example.
“I think the cameras have been a good safety measure for Muscatine,” Fitzgerald said. “I think we’re slowly getting the results of people slowing down at those intersections.”
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