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DRIVERS are speaking out after a July 1 road law will impose fines up to $1,000 on speedy motorists.
Road-monitoring devices mounted over speedways restarted in several major cities on July 1. Drivers complained that the road law-capturing devices were too expensive.
Drivers in six popular cities have been asked to slow down with a new law[/caption]
Speed cameras can assign drivers fines from $75 to $1,000[/caption]
Iowa drivers in six cities – Davenport, Cedar Rapids, LeClaire, Muscatine, and Des Moines – have been warned about the speed-trapping cameras.
The cameras paused ticketing drivers while the data systems implemented new automatic fees. They reactivated on July 1.
“Speed cameras have nothing to do with safety,” one driver alleged in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, about the road law.
“It’s just a way for greedy local governments to generate revenue.”
More cities across the US have rolled out speed-capturing cameras as excessive acceleration has been commonly cited in recent traffic accidents.
The US has experienced a growing number of accidents since 2020 – though the number of American crashes is slowing, per the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety.
Iowa’s new law hopes to slow down drivers in the six densely-populated cities.
The cameras will issue automatic fines to all drivers caught going 11 mph or more on the city’s roads.
Cars captured driving 11 to 20 mph over the speed limit will pay $75 for the infraction.
Driving 21-25 mph over the limit comes with a $100 fine.
Drivers will pay $250 for speeding 26-30 mph.
Anything over 30 mph will get an automatic $500 fine.
All fines are doubled if the driver is caught in a construction zone.
The fine will initially be sent to the car’s owner. A vehicle owner can tell the state they weren’t behind the wheel during the infraction.
However, they must have proof that another motorist was using the vehicle and provide the driver’s name.
Drivers must pay or refute the fine within 30 days, the new law states.
How to fight a speeding ticket
According to a legally reviewed post, there are five effective strategies to fighting a speeding ticket if it was wrongfully issued.
- If pulled over and issued a ticket, drivers can argue or dispute a driver’s personal opinion. When issuing a speeding ticket, an officer is required to write their opinion and come to an “objective” conclusion. If the ticket was written based on that judgment, it can be contested. An example would be if you were going 75 mph in a 65 mph zone because others were traveling at the same speed, you could argue that it would be more dangerous to travel at 65 mph.
- You can dispute the officer’s presentation of evidence. If you were ticketed for something like running a stop sign or making an illegal u-turn, you can’t contest that if an officer saw you, but you can call things into court like eyewitnesses, diagrams, or photos.
- Argue that the ticket was issued by a “mistake of fact.” This is tricky, but a “mistake of fact” is a mistake made by a driver about a situation that was beyond their control, or if a driver legitimately did not know they were violating the law. For example, you were driving in two lanes because the lane markers were so worn down that you could not see them.
- You could say circumstances justified your driving. You could say you were speeding to pass a possibly drunk driver, or avoiding an accident by rapidly changing lanes. However, the argument won’t work if there’s proof you continued to speed after passing.
- Similar to the above, it could be argued that speeding was necessary to avoid harm. The key is to argue that if you weren’t speeding, you or someone else could have been harmed.
- Consult a traffic attorney, if all else fails. Many have free consultations to decide whether or not there’s a case.
Source: FindLaw
If the driver doesn’t pay in the appropriate amount of time, the state is able to take the funds from the resident’s future state tax returns.
Drivers may also contest the ticket altogether.
However, trying to get out of the ticket comes with additional financial risk.
Drivers must pay a $95 fee if they refute their ticket in court and lose the case.
