Hats off to those people paying the voluntary traffic tax. You're the real MVPs
this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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Edmonton
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I was just up in Edmonton a few weekends ago, it's been a few years since I've had to go up the QE2. Think my last time was in early 2018. One of my biggest takeaways, is that Edmontonians are absolutely being held hostage by their policing when it comes to radar. It's good to see (/s) that the Edmonton police are assigning such a high amount of resources to traffic "safety", considering all the other actual tomfuckery I witnessed. I ain't ever seen so many god damn speed traps in my life, let alone the photo radar. That henday is a nightmare.
being held hostage by their policing when it comes to radar.
Thank you for sharing but I have to say I don't really get this perspective. I get that photo radar tickets are annoying, but... as another poster said, it's a voluntary tax (edit: thanks @yardy_sardley). Literally just stay in control of your vehicle and you won't speed.
And the argument that photo radar doesn't improve safety? Also didn't make sense to me. Sure some people don't care and speed anyway, but most people are more likely to stay within the limits and therefore the roads are safer. If you don't want the police to grab your cash with this cash grab, it's voluntary. Don't let them grab it.
My whole point is that you've got a helluva lot of front line resources chasing people around over speeding. Yes it can cause accidents, yadda yadda, but when we have transit systems overrun by drug addicts, the opioid crisis itself, and all sorts of other shit going on, it's kinda dumb. Surely those resources could be utilized better elsewhere, no?
We stayed in Sherwood for something different, kids wanted to go to the mall, that's like what a 30-40 min drive on the Henday? Almost every overpass had a cop on it, cops all in the traffic, again this is probably a difference in opinion (which is fine, don't get me wrong). It was pretty messed up.
I don't disagree that there might be better ways to use police but the cars in the overpasses are just contractors with speed cameras, I think. There's some regulation that means a person has to be there. I don't think they are police. I also think rules governing photo radar are provincially mandated.
If I'm wrong, please explain as I would like to know the truth.
In this instance most of them were cops out of cruisers, with radar guns. Lots of photo radar too, don't get me wrong. But these were bonafide cops, you probably had half to 3/4s of a million dollars of salary sitting on overpasses.
It's your tax dollars though, I mean if you guys are ok with that, by all means carry on.
Ok, I'll take your word for it.
For the record, I'm not ok with it. If people behaved sensibly we wouldn't need speed limits or police. You may have noticed this is not the case.
I think it's a waste of money we could avoid if people didn't act like idiots.
The things is, we do have police and if we don't have speed cameras, those cops are going to chase that revenue by pulling people over instead.
A cop pulling over a speeder is way more dangerous to the general public than a speed camera and it's also far more disruptive to the general flow of traffic. I fully expect this ultimately cost far more than the cameras. So, I'll take the cameras.
The easiest way to get rid of them is to stop speeding. Once the revenue they earn is negligible they will go away. This has the interesting side effect of you not getting speeding tickets.
I think you have a very fair and rational stance. I'm not necessarily against radar and traffic control either, but just like everything else, there's doing it and then there is overkill.