DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that Iowa Department of Transportation officers do not have authority to issue speeding tickets to or arrest drivers outside of the regulation of commercial vehicles. The finding came Friday in separate 2016 cases in which lower courts split on the issue, with a judge in Iowa County finding that carrier enforcement officers did have such authority, while a judge in Polk County ruled that those officers did not.

The state’s high court ruled Friday that Iowa law allowed the officers to make arrests and issue tickets only for violations relating to operating authority, registration, size, weight and load of commercial vehicles.
State law changed last year, giving IDOT officers the authority to ticket drivers of noncommercial vehicles, but only until July 2018.