It is back to school week. The ticket-giving camera across from the school has been knocked to the ground. It is a large contraption about 8 feet in the air on a pole. It photographs the license of a passing car going over the speed limit to give a ticket for going over 40 kp/h in a school zone. It generated lots of tickets so far. Or at least there are urban legends of how many tickets have been generated. It takes a while - about 30 days - to receive the ticket notice in the mail. The urban legend I heard is that one person got 8 tickets or more. Typically they are around $70 or $80 each.
So I wonder who was responsible for the vadalism. Here are three options of who might have damaged the photo radar for September's start:
a) young people vandalizing things b) angry speeding drivers furious about slowing down c) a/some very angry ticket recipient(s)
The traffic-calming initiative has regularly made the news. Typically with vandalized cameras, vitriolic postings on social media, and voluminous complaints to regional representatives.
"Although the initiative was intended to calm traffic in the areas, increase awareness about speeding and reduce collisions and injuries in the areas as part of Niagara’s Vision Zero road safety initiative, Chiocchio said it’s instead being perceived as “a cash grab.”
I guess if you got an $80 ticket for going 50 in a 40 zone, you would experience a thought of it being a cash grab.
This is not a one-time effort - it is the start of lower speed limit. St. Catharines has installed signs city-wide in residential neighbourhoods that it is now a 40-km/h maximum. Here are the statistics:
"It is for good reason that speed limits are getting lower: A 10% reduction in average speed in a city achieved through lower speed limits can result in 19% fewer injury crashes, 27% fewer death and serious injury crashes, and 34% fewer fatal crashes."
Each day I check on whether the camera has been repaired. We'll see what's up today.
I found this picture in the archives. It is Linda, Brian and me with Candy our dog, washing the car. How much speeding would this car have ever done? The first Ford car could go 65 - 70 km/h and that was in 1920. Maybe we've been speeding for well over 100 years.
I found this pictureI took of a Pacific Ocean beach near Monterey. Makes me think that summer might never end.
No comments:
Post a Comment