One of my least-favourite safety measures will be a thing of the past when the clock strikes midnight tonight in Belleville.
Many communities across Ontario, including Belleville and Brighton, committed to removing their speed cameras by the end of today after the province declared that municipalities don’t have the authority to use them.
While the Bollards (of speed slalom poles as I sometimes think of them) in Cannifton also rub many the wrong way, it is Belleville’s four speed cameras that have drawn the most negative attention from many (including me).
While some would focus on the arbitrary level of where the penalties are set (which is never made clear), or the affordability issue at a time of strained finances, it is what they don’t do that often vexes me.
While they do act as a traffic calming measure, they don’t actually make streets safer because they don’t do many of the things that a police officer would.
They don’t pull over vehicles, so a driver going 100 in a 40 gets a ticket sent through the mail instead of a pair of flashing lights and a licence suspension.
They treat a person going 52 in a 40 on a clear night outside a school zone the same as someone doing that in bumper to bumper traffic at 8:30 on a Tuesday morning. Those two things aren’t the same.
So while I won’t thank Premier Ford for the early Christmas present, I will not miss our silent, robotic traffic enforcement pilons when they are removed from city streets. Officers and not machines make a community safer, even if they don’t generate millions of dollars in ticket revenue.
I’m Paul Martin and that’s what I see looking Beyond the Headlines.
