Traffic cameras are flawed, controversial

To the editor:

Recently, I was traveling through Cedar Rapids. Imagine my surprise when I arrived home to find a citation had been issued to my address, but to one Kent Bradley, a person whose name I neither recognize nor know, along with a nice black-and-white portrait of my car.

The entire scheme under which the allegations of speeding have been against 'Kent Bradley” appears to arise from the presumption that the speed camera technology and radar equipment used in the City of Cedar Rapids have worked so flawlessly as to allow the city to identify particular vehicles and to assign to them certain alleged unlawful speeds.

How can such a presumption be respected when so many other fundamental matters related to the same city's prosecution of such an allegation of violations of the law have been so seriously flawed? Does Cedar Rapids calibrate their cameras? Are large trucks cited? Is there proper 'due process”? Has this 'public safety program” reduced speed related accidents? Is your speed trap in compliance with Iowa DOT regulations?

We all know why those 'robo-cops” are there, don't we? Your city is raking in millions of dollars from people who, unlike me, find it easier to pay this fraud rather than to fight it.

Ultimately, my efforts paid off and the citation was 'canceled.” I'm glad that my hometown doesn't use such questionable methods to raise funds. I hope the good people of Cedar Rapids address this issue and address it soon.

Brad Leeser

Moorhead, Minn.