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How Many Photo Tickets Will It Take Before You Fight Back?
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Manure in a Pretty Package
is still Manure

The City of Winnipeg is having their Photo Enforcement Program reviewed and evaluated by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation during the next few months. It is hoped that a report from this agency will help in the lobby effort by Winnipeg Police to show that six years of photo enforcement has made streets safer and therefore they need to expand the program and be able to move about the city at a whim!

Ok..........So if the program is doing so well, then why do the Police need to move around?

It is because the only thing that the program is accomplishing, is the conditioning of drivers to slow down, pass the camera and Speed Up again?

Or is it because the program is doing so well at surprising people at new locations in short bursts, that they can generate more revenue by constantly moving around?

So how are they going to sell this to The People?

Well I've already seen that they are setting up in test locations to monitor traffic at a variety of main routes and side streets.

Their reports will show that there are enough vehicles going over their threshold of 10 kph to warrant setting up in these spots. Then like the predictable report that it is going to be, they will show that they had some high speeds, even dangerous! They will display the prised photos of the Big Speeds and leave out the fact that the high majority of the vehicles counted as speeders were between 10-20 kph over.

After some pleasing headlines and spoon fed media releases, that never get questioned, they will start surveying citizens. It will be interesting to see the cross section of people spoken too. My guess, and this is no slight on Seniors, they will contact people that demographically will assist their cause. Seniors are more likely to agree with the program, their social conditioning is to agree with authority.

The middle aged and younger generations are more likely to have had been effected by the program and are more vocal about their concerns and dis-agreements with the program.

Like most surveys, this one won't reflect the reality of the Program, because you can word questions in ways that are mis leading and you are dealing with people who know nothing about the subject except what they have read in the papers.

Here's what Bugs Me About What's Happening!

It should bother the Citizens of Winnipeg Too!

It's one thing that studies like this are funded by money put aside from the earnings of the program. (Fine money is promoting the making of more fine money.)

However when you send a mobile radar unit out to locations where there are Alleged Speed Problems and it sits there monitoring traffic and taking pictures of Alleged Offences and does nothing else. That is not Just Dangerous, It Is Also Completely Irresponsible! Especially To flaunt the recording of high speeds and using them as headlines. The headline should read,

'City Police Put Your Safety In Jeopardy To Promote Photo Radar!'

Is that not what they are doing?

Would it not be more Responsible, to dedicate at least a couple of 2 man traffic units strictly to doing this. They could respond to these 'so called' problem areas and if they are left alone so that their day is not interrupted by any calls for service or Collisions then they could accurately determine if their is a Problem and if so, Stop and Ticket The Drivers on the Spot!

Traffic Officers won't just watch the unlicensed or Suspended driver go by and take a picture of them, (Bad Drivers love the Cameras, they laugh every time they speed by them!) , as well the speeding driver who is impaired or in a stolen vehicle will also get caught. Those who are going slightly over the low photo radar threshold will however drive by.

The City won't do this because of manpower shortages and they wouldn't have shortages if they didn't have budget restraints! At least thats the excuse anyways.

So let's get this straight then. They will employ a Private, For Profit Camera Company to run the program. This company goes on to earn approximately $40 million dollars to date, (most of which is taken out of the local economy, to who knows where?)so that the City can make about the same as they did when they had a full compliment of Traffic Officers. It gives you a headache just thinking about it!

The city also won't test a few intersections with longer Amber times to see if this makes a difference with speeds or collisions. Just like they also won't put speed bumps in school and playground zones or try arranging Construction Zone Barricades in a manner which Forces a vehicle to slow down.

All of the above will actually Improve Safety, what it won't do is generate revenue!

The Solution!

If this is truly not about Revenue, then give the excess money to a separate entity like Public Schools or Youth Programs. After all the Program doesn't cost the City anything in theory except for some wages and administration expenses. So then after these expenses are covered the City neither loses or makes money. Wow what a concept.

Only problem is, that everywhere this has been tried or put into law, the City's or State's involved have canceled their photo enforcement programs.

It's easy to Create a Pretty Package, however when you open it up and look inside, the Manure it's holding Still Stinks!

Drive Safe, Slow Down, Keep Your Money In Your Pocket.

Larry Stefanuik
trafficticketguru.com

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