Iowa Residents File Traffic Camera Class Action Lawsuit

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On Tuesday, a traffic camera class action lawsuit was filed by two Iowa state residents against the City of Cedar Rapids, challenging the automated traffic cameras installed on two major Interstate highways.

The lead plaintiffs, Gary Hughes and Arash Yarpezeshkan, filed this traffic camera class action lawsuit alleging that the implementation of the speed cameras is flawed and fails to provide sufficient notice to Iowa motorists. Additionally, Hughes and Yarepezeshkan claim that the cameras target certain motorists over others, leaving thousands exempt from the speed laws and fines, creating an unequal highway environment.

Cedar Rapids’ Automated Traffic Enforcement (ATE) allegedly relies on the speed traffic cameras on interstate highways to enforce speed limits with the intent of saving lives and reducing fatal or injurious crashes. The speed traffic cameras were installed with the intent of photographing all motorists who violate the speed limit so they may later be issued a $75 civil penalty, although this penalty does not appear on a driver’s record like a traditional speeding ticket.

However, according to the traffic camera class action lawsuit:

“More than 100,000 Iowa-based motor vehicles—mostly semi-trucks, trucks and buses—that conduct business across state lines don’t have rear-license-plates under the International Registration Plan. Thus, unless the owner-operators of motorized cabs and power units also own the semi-trailers that they are pulling, they are, de facto, exempted from prosecution under the ATE ordinance. “

Additionally, Hughes and Yarpezeshkan claim that there are more than 3,200 state and government owned motor vehicles with license plates that are not listed in the computerized files to enforce the ATE ordinance. This allows the motorists operating these vehicles and the government agencies that own them to also be exempt from the speeding traffic laws. The same exemption allegedly applies to out of state license plates that are not registered in the database, which the ATE system heavily relies on.

Therefore, based on the thousands of the alleged exemptions, Hughes and Yarepezeshkan filed the traffic camera class action lawsuit alleging, “Due to their enforcement of an inherently flawed scheme, both the City and Gatso have benefited in the past, and continue to benefit, financially by imposing civil penalties upon certain classes of owners of vehicles: those who have been alleged to have been speeding, whose vehicles have rear license plates, and whose license plate numbers are included in the database used by Gatso.”

In 2013 alone, Cedar Rapids ATE reportedly issued close to 100,000 tickets totaling to $5.3 million, of which the city received $3.1 million and Gatso, the company who produces the traffic cameras, received $2.1 million.

However, this is not the only allegation against the City of Cedar Rapids use of ATE systems. The traffic camera class action lawsuit also alleges that the design of the speed traffic cameras is “independently flawed” because the city has failed to post the minimally-required notices to inform Iowa motorists of speed limit changes.

The state of Iowa also requires that there must be a minimum of 1,000 feet between the a traffic camera and speed limit change on the highway. According to the traffic camera class action lawsuit, the speed traffic cameras on I-380 do not comply with this state mandate.

Hughes and Yarpezeshkan traffic camera class action lawsuit requests that the speed cameras should be banned until the end of the court proceedings, followed by a permanent restriction on the ATE program, and demands refunds to all motorists who were fined by ATE during the last two years.

The Traffic Camera Class Action Lawsuit is Hughes, et al. v. City of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, et al., in the Iowa District Court for Linn County. A case number has not yet been assigned.