A bill has emerged in the state legislature that would regulate traffic enforcement cameras that catch vehicles speeding and running red lights. For the past 12 years, attempts to ban the cameras have failed, but Republican Senator Mike Klimesh of Spillville says it appears the House may accept a state permitting process for operating traffic cameras.
“It has a pretty good chance of getting done this year,” Klimesh says, “and, if not this year…it’s going to be a live round next year and we’ll take it back up again and try to finish it off next year.”
Cities would have to prove a traffic camera’s location is related to improving safety in the area to get a permit from the Iowa DOT. Klimesh says the bill will also establish what fines may be charged on traffic cam tickets. The bill also outlines a way for vehicle owners to make someone else pay the fine.
“We’ve made a provision in the bill that allows people to actually go down a path to show: ‘Hey, yes it was my vehicle but no, I was not driving. Here’s an affadavit to prove that. Send the bill on to this gentleman,'” Klimesh says.
Senator Adrian Dickey, a Republican from Packwood, is a reluctant supporter of the developing compromise. He’d like to ban traffic cameras in Iowa. “These are revenue generators locally and that’s exactly what these damned things are,” Dickey says.
Senator Cindy Winckler, a Democrat from Davenport, is a reluctant supporter of the bill, too. She’s concerned about restricting the use of mobile traffic cameras in Iowa’s smaller communities. “One of the things that I think we have to be very careful of is that continual intrusion into local control,” Winckler says.
The bill has cleared a Senate subcommittee, but lawmakers are discussing some changes to the plan before it would ever be debated by the full Senate. The first attempt to ban traffic cameras failed to pass a senate subcommittee in 2011. In 2015, the Iowa D-O-T ordered several Iowa cities to turn off traffic cameras along primary highways and interstates, but in 2018 the Iowa Supreme Court ruled the legislature had not given the agency authority to regulate traffic cameras.