Marshalltown is now starting to give tickets from its speed camera system after a grace period where drivers only received warnings.
Police Chief Mike Tupper says there were less than 100 fines issued as the switch started. “We’ve actually issued 84 citations that have fines associated with them in the first 10 days,” Tupper says. Tupper says there were some wrong reports in the media of the actual number of fines given this month.
“There have been 800 Speeding events in that 10-day period, but only 84 of them so far have had citations sent out with fines attached,” he says. The chief says the Gatso camera company is running the system. “They do the initial review, okay, so not all of the video actually makes it to us, they go through it first. And they pull out the ones that were for whatever reason that the video image is unclear, we don’t have good license plate data or whatever. So some of that stuff gets pulled out before we it ever gets to us.
Tupper says his officers then do a review of the cases the company sends and decide if a ticket will be issued. The fine depends on how fast someone was going. “Eleven to 20 miles per hour (over the limit) the fine is 100 dollars. Twenty-one to 25 it’s 150 dollars, 26 to 30 it’s 250 dollars, and then anything over 30 it’s 400 dollars,” he explains. Tupper says the tickets he’s seen have averaged between ten and 13 miles an hour over the limit, though there have been some way over the limit.
He says they are giving drivers enough leeway. ” I would be thrilled if we issued zero citations next week. All we need is for people to follow the speed limit,” Tupper says. “And we’re giving you 11 or ten over right? You can drive ten over and you’re not getting the ticket until 11 over, that’s too fast. So just slow down.”
Tupper says they will know more about the number of violations next week with better data because all of the warning periods will be expired.
(By Zack Tomesch, KFJB, Marshalltown)