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Winnipeg: Photo Radar Rip Off, Whose Decision Was It?

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We are moving over to a video format because things have gotten so busy that we just don't have the time to do straight written content anymore and this way we can more effectively and more efficiently get the latest in traffic and photo enforcement news out to the general public.

You'll find too if you are watching this video on our website at www.trafficticketguru.com in the Guru's view section you'll find that the entire transcript from the video will be written out below the video for those of you still stuck on dial up and don't want to invest in high speed and don't want to wait 5 minutes to wait for the video to upload you can read the content below.

So, let's get right down to business, I apologize for being away since about the 15th of May, things have been very busy and I haven't had the chance to do as much commentary as I would like to, which is unfortunate because there has been so much going on here in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada regarding photo enforcement that I would have loved to get more articles in. So for the first 3 videos that we are going to do here, we're going to concentrate on the Winnipeg area.

Those of you who aren't from the Winnipeg area I hope you'll still watch it, cause really when it comes down to it, if you live in a community that has photo enforcement just substitute the names of your Police Chief, your Mayor and your Elected Official into this program and you'll pretty much have the same result as what's happening here.

So, let's catch up. At the beginning of May the crown decided that they were not going to appeal the Sundstrom decision, where tickets were quashed in construction zones for speeding because there wasn't workers present, the Highway Traffic Act mandates the workers have to be present.

Well somebody choose to specifically ignore this law and that's a question that has never been answered by anybody yet.

Who made the decision to blatantly break the law?

Lets face it, it wasn't the commissionaires operating the vehicles, they have a hard enough time deciding what they're going to wear to work in the morning, and they wear uniforms. Now obviously a group of individuals got together likely and decided, you know I think we can probably skirt the law this way and if we get caught we can do this and we can do that and we can deflect it this way. Which apparently what's happened.

Now if this had been allegations against an officer for any other kind of offence or crime that officer would be facing suspension and a career that could be in jeopardy etc, yet nobody has been held to account to this at all. Whether from the City or from the Police Service or the Province.

All they've done is basically have the province change the wording of the law so they could continue to hide in construction zones which they say are so dangerous but make up less than 1 percent of all collisions that occur in Manitoba and in fact across the most of the world's construction zones are pretty safe places to be. A very small percent of accidents ever occur and those ones that do are usually ones that involve construction workers and their own personal vehicles or construction vehicles.

So number one the fact of the matter is construction zones are not dangerous places to be, yet the Chief, Chief McCaskil appears to think that they are and that even though they are "so dangerous" he even comes out and says he can't justify taking a uniformed officer from investigations or calls for service to have them go down there and perform radar. It's better left up to the commissionaires in their vehicle.

Well if you are going to stick a human body in a vehicle with a radar unit and stick them in an area that's supposed to be "so dangerous" and "high speeds" well wouldn't you want to make sure that the person in the vehicle could actually pull the driver over at the time and prevent an accident from occurring or dealing with the driver who may be impaired, maybe suspended or prohibited form driving. Who knows maybe have abducted a child.

Now wouldn't that be something if there was an Amber Alert or an Adam Alert and a picture of a vehicle, the offending vehicle was taken by a photo radar van as it drove past with the child in the car, what a great safety tool that is, NOT.

Now, like I said the Chief can't justify taking a uniform officer to work in those areas yet it appears he can certainly justify bringing officers in on their days off and paying them Time and a Half to go to certain hot spots in the city and write as many tickets as humanly possibly during that shift. Well talk about being a hypocrite.

It just goes to show more and more that anything the City is doing right now has nothing to do with safety, it's just total revenue.

Let's move over to the Mayor, Mayor Sam Katz who comes out when the tickets were quashed says "I didn't know what was going on, I didn't know they were ticketing people in construction zones when there was no workers present. I think it's wrong and I think it should stop." Well then, everyone thought it was going to change everything, well it really hasn't, now it just enabled the city to get the government to change the wording of the HTA so they can set up again in Construction Zones when no workers are present and ticket people.

So nothing has changed, but we haven't heard a lot from Mayor Katz since the Crown decided not to appeal and I think it's because he's beginning to realize that Photo Enforcement really is a black eye on the city and it's nothing really to stand behind, but darn the cash is just too darn good that's coming in to help supplement the Police budget. And then you've got Councilor Gord Steeves who was head of the Protection Committee and here's a guy that I was on CBC radio with and when peppering him with different stats he came out and admitted that the City has been having trouble finding the safety proponent in the program and even though he admitted this on air CBC chose to Podcast a generic article from that morning and didn't even air that, which I still don't understand but he came right out and said that they were having trouble finding the safety component.

And even the annual reports are showing once you get the actual, actual collision statistics from the Manitoba Public Insurance it shows that there has been no safety increase since the Photo Enforcement Program has come into play. And Gord, I can see, he just wants to come right out and say, "You know what? I'm tried of hiding behind this, it's a revenue generation tool." so Gord grab a set of bullocks and come out and call it was it is.

So finally, let's move over to the Province, we got Premier Doer who has said that this is just a pitch fork issue of the day and that it's going to go away soon and people will forget about it because for the most part the majority of Manitobans and Winnipegers support Photo Enforcement. Well Mr. Doer I'm sorry but your charming smile and your Rico Sauve' haircut will only get you so much mileage on this issue because although there may a be people who are in favor of photo enforcement and how it's supposed to improve safety, I'll tell you a very high percentage of people are not in favor of a government that allows laws to be blantantly broken and rip off 60,000 people with tickets that average 200 dollars each which would make it about 12 million dollars that the Manitoba economy is out from hard working, honest drivers that are not speeders, who just simply got caught distracted in a counstruction zone not going over the regular speed limit, there is a very small fraction actually who were going over the regular speed limit, they were just going over the reduced speed limit, but of course there was no workers were present so they thought they were allowed to do the regular speed limit.

And then of course Mr Doer has his lackey, the Minister of Justice Dave Chomiak who, thank God is not the Minister of Education because when he was before the media and touting how the Conservative Party is just trying to make this just some political issue and saying "If this is not about politics, it's like saying that porcupines don't have pines. Well Mr. Chomiak, we all know porcupines have quills and again I'm so glad you are not the Minister of Education.

So here we go we have the Province, we have the City and the Police all thumbing their nose at you saying you know, too bad so sad we are not refunding your money, you're out of it, we are changing the rules, we're going to keep doing whatever we want to do and that's just the way it is.

So its time now for people to stop being complacent Manitobans becauase that's what they're counting on, as well for you to bitch and whine for a little while and it'll all go away.

Well it's time to start standing up and making yourself heard but it's also time to start protecting yourself and one of the best ways I know to protect yourself is to sign up and get a subscription to the Phantom Alert GPS data base. It's 100 percent legal and I have personally, for the city of Winnipeg and the surrounding area have personally updated it completely so that every school zone is marked , everywhere a mobile speed camera can set up is marked, everywhere red light cameras are, all hot spots, all human hot spots are also tagged on this GPS data base so you will be warned well ahead of time if your coming up on one of these zones and make sure you are driving properly, so that you don't get caught distracted and end up getting one of these bogus tickets.

Now if you want to subscribe to the data base theres a link directly below this video if you are watching it on our site. If not come to our site www.trafficticketguru.com and sign up for it.

And for a limited time only, to make it an extra bonus I am going to give you a free copy of my book "How Liars Reveal Themselves" both the audio and electronic book cause let's face it, not everybody's a politician so you're not going to know when everybody is lying to you and this book will certainly help you figure that one out.

So come to our site, go directly to the link that's below this video and order the GPS Database. It's an instant download into your GPS so you have instant protection and you will receive a free copy of my book, that's a 50 dollar value right there for free.

We went a little over time on this video and we're going to try and keep them to 5 minutes or less and I'm going to really, really try but this subject is such an easy topic to talk about and the people here in Manitoba just give me more and more fodder all the time.

In our next video we'll talk about who's helping who hindering your program here.

Slow down, drive safe and keep your money in your pocket.

Larry Stefanuik
trafficticketguru.com

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