Is Cedar Rapids getting national rep as speed trap?

CEDAR RAPIDS — Is Cedar Rapids just one big speed trap? That's how a number of out-of-staters view the City of Five Seasons.

Cedar Rapids's automated traffic cameras trigger mailings of tens of thousands of speeding tickets a year to motorists from all over the country, and some say it's earning Cedar Rapids a notorious reputation.

'When I think of Cedar Rapids, I used to think of a nice city,' said Dolores Ratcliff of Gilbert, Ariz. 'Now I just think of it as a speed trap.'

Ratcliff and her husband, Bruce, were caught speeding by the cameras since moving part-time to Iowa a few years ago for more time with the grandchildren. They make frequent trips between Iowa City and Waterloo, bringing them through a gauntlet of four camera locations on Interstate 380, at the heart of Cedar Rapids.

'The camera is placed right where the new slower speed is documented,' Ratcliff said. 'Now we know the trick of slowing down before the sign and speeding up in between the cameras.'

Cedar Rapids has signs clearly marking the presence of traffic cameras, and the cameras are calibrated to ticket those going at least 12 miles per hour over the speed limit. But many out-of-towners say they are surprised when a $75 or more citation arrives in the mail back home.

'It's an unwelcoming feeling,' said Adam Auxier of Eden Prairie, who started flying rather than driving between Minneapolis and St. Louis after a ticket. 'Once a stretch of highway gets that reputation, you avoid it.'

The Avenue of the Saints — a 563-mile stretch of highway that's anchored at either end by St. Louis and Minneapolis and with Cedar Rapids in the middle — carries thousands of non-residents a day through Cedar Rapids.

Out-of-state speeders have received 158,121, or 36 percent, of the 442,000 citations issued from 2010 through August 2014, according to data from Cedar Rapids.

Residents from Illinois have been nabbed the most with 41,406 citations, followed by Minnesotans with 40,616 tickets, and Missourians with 11,081 tickets, in that time frame.

The volume of tickets issued to Minnesota residents was substantial enough to earn an article titled, 'How an Iowa town caught 16,000 Minnesota speeders in less than two years,' on the front page of the Minnesota Star-Tribune this past Sunday.

The story refers to Cedar Rapids as 'the ultimate speed trap in the Midwest.'

John Bowman, vice president of the National Motorists Association in Waunakee, Wis., said Cedar Rapids is developing a bad reputation among drivers.

'Certainly Cedar Rapids has popped up on our radar,' Bowman said. 'I can tell you I've been under the impression that Cedar Rapids has been fairly aggressive in its use of radar ticketing, which is equated to a speed-trap site.'

The association analyzes the worst cities for speed traps based on feedback motorists provide through the organization's speed-trap exchange, a mechanism for drivers to inform each other.

Based on the feedback, Cedar Rapids ranks as the second-worst 'speed trap city' in the country, behind Houston, since September 2013, Bowman said. That means Cedar Rapids has received the second-most reports about speed traps by motorists of anywhere in the country, he noted.

'I would say it is pretty notorious,' Bowman said. 'I would say it's probably a lot more out-of-state people making these reports. People who drive through an area they are not familiar with, and return home two or three weeks later and find a ticket.'