After four months, Davenport’s red light cameras have brought more than 850 citations. Two-thirds of them have been paid, hauling in 36-thousand dollars. The money is being split between the camera vendor and the city. Police Chief Mike Bladel wants city council approval for “speed” cameras and has support from Alderman Bob McGivern. He says they look at how much an officer costs, and he says to take those resources to write 12 or 15 tickets to try and change behaviour is not feasible.Chief Bladel says cameras that would nab speeders make the most sense and would require the hiring of one person to operate them and an officer to oversee the issuing of citations. Bladel says it’s too soon to know if the “red light” cameras have cut the numbers of crashes at the four intersections they serve. He says there’s not enough data yet to see what kind of impact the cameras have had.The cameras take pictures of cars and their license plates when red lights are run. The plates are traced and vehicle owners are sent a “notice of violation” in the mail, along with a 65-dollar fine. McGivern says his “big brother” concerns aside, Davenport’s red light cameras are working and it’s time for cameras An Iowa D-O-T study found in a three-year period, red light violation crashes in Davenport resulted in one death, 583 injuries and more than 11-million dollars in property damage.
