In less than two weeks of operation, Morrison’s automated speed cameras clocked nearly 9,000 speeding drivers, generating 1.36 tickets every minute.
Morrison Police Chief Bill Vinelli said a representative of the cameras’ manufacturer told him it’s the highest volume they’ve ever seen. Traffic Logix provides the cameras, which are set to issue $40 citations at 35 mph — 10 mph over Morrison’s posted speed limit.
“Traffic Logix has these all over the country, and they told me they’ve never seen anything like the traffic in Morrison, Colorado,” Vinelli told the Morrison Town Board during its May 21 meeting. “Anyone who wants to paint Morrison as a speed trap can stand and watch, and see that we have a traffic safety issue.”
One violator was clocked at 61 mph — more than twice the 25 mph speed limit, he said.
Morrison is a quaint, historic town that draws thousands of visitors on weekends. Bear Creek Avenue doubles as a state highway, which abruptly transforms into an often-congested downtown as drivers enter Morrison. Pedestrian safety has long been a concern, and town leaders hope the cameras will help make its main thoroughfare safer.
“This is data-driven and evidence-based,” Trustee Paul Sutton said of statistics generated by the speed cameras. “It’s a high-pedestrian environment and a public safety issue. Hopefully, we’ll get down to not having 5,000 a week. Five hundred a week would be a dramatic improvement for everybody.”
Vinelli said the cameras flag far more speeding drivers than Morrison’s 15 police officers can do alone.
“I average about 15 to 18 minutes on a traffic stop,” he said. “In that time, the camera catches another 20. We can’t write enough on our own to equate to what the camera is helping us do.”
The town also had to jump to a higher data plan May 21 to keep up with the spike in online activity the cameras are creating. An image of each car the camera flags for speeding is uploaded daily and transmitted to Louisiana-based Emergent Enforcement Solution, a third-party vendor that processes citations.
“We don’t force anybody to speed,” Vinelli said. “We’re not unique to any municipality in the country. We just happen to be more proactive than a lot of them. But they’re going to this. Every chief I talk to wants to know where I got those. Every community will have them soon.”
The cameras began generating citations May 8. Before that, they’d been in warning mode for 60 days, issuing warnings to speeding drivers with no monetary penalty.
One of the cameras is permanently mounted at Colorado Highways 74 and 8, and the other is on a trailer that can be moved around town.