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Alright, a few things need to be clarified here:
1. What "speeding" means
First and foremost, when we use the term "speeding" to hint at reckless driving, we are referring to the act of driving too fast for the particular driving conditions. In this weather, 80 would probably be too fast for safety. In the middle of the summer when there's light traffic and road conditions are perfect, half the people could easily be going at 150-200 km/h and not get into any accidents.
However, as a general rule, traffic engineers say that the 85th percentile should be used to set speed limits. That means the speed that 85 percent of drivers would be going under during normal conditions. Roads in most of Ontario are set at the 50th percentile. Highways are set as low as the 10th percentile. Speed limits on highways used to be higher, but the government decided that they were not generating enough revenue and decided to lower them.
When we redefine "speeding" so literally as "going over the speed limit", it no longer makes any sense to say that it causes collisions. They try to prove by statistical correlation that people who speed get into more accidents, but correlation means nothing - by that logic, you could set the speed limit at 1 km/h, and say that every single accident is caused by speeding. Realistically, the accidents are caused by tailgaters, lane hoppers, and believe it or not, people who drive too slow.
Someone mentioned the Autobahn in Germany - that is one of the safest highways in the world, and yet it has no posted speed limit. Why is it so safe? Because people drive courteously, in particular, slow drivers stay in the slow lanes so fast drivers can get where they want to go as fast as they want to get there. No road rage, no problems.
2. Due Process
To be perfectly clear on what this is: An established course for judicial proceedings or other governmental activities designed to safeguard the legal rights of the individual.
We have an established judicial system for dealing with legal issues. And to be perfectly blunt, the concept of photo radar is a complete denial of due process. Why? Let's see...
1) There is absolutely no direct evidence (a witness). In a real trial for a criminal charge, a photo with machine readings would hardly hold up as proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
2) One cannot be expected to clearly remember the events surrounding an occurrence that took place 2 or 3 weeks ago. It's unfairly difficult to form a proper legal defense.
3) This is even a problem without the photo radar, but the system is set up in every way to make it as inconvenient as possible for you to actually go to trial, thereby forcing people to just pay out of court. People are not properly informed of their rights when they receive tickets.
3. Positive Effects
Whether or not you believe it, the speeding ticket system has never done anything to improve road safety. If anything, it increases road rage due to drivers who go far too slow. I'm too lazy to google the studies right now but if you read studies done by traffic engineers (i.e. not government-sponsored), you'll see that speeding ticket systems, especially photo radar, do not work as people might expect.
Why? Well, mainly because half of the real reckless drivers know that photo radar tickets can't hold up in court as they can rarely prove who was actually driving the car. There are also lots of other legal reasons why they won't stand, but I won't get into that now. The other reason is, since people don't get their ticket until weeks later, they're not going to know to slow down until then. It's also been shown that even though people might slow down for a while, they eventually resume their normal driving habits when they start to feel "safe". And, once again, even if people do slow down, that means nothing in terms of road safety, because people can still be jackasses on the road while going under the speed limit, and in certain conditions, even the posted speed is still far too high for the conditions.
To put it simply, the system doesn't work, despite all the government propaganda that tries to claim that it really does help traffic. If they truly wanted people to slow down, why not make the speed traps obvious and legalize radar detectors? Ask anyone what they'd do if they knew they were coming close to a speed trap, they'll tell you, slow down!! The sole purpose of unmarked patrol cars and photo radar is to make money, not out of concern for safety.
To summarize: As a province, the easiest cash grab is to:
1. Set speed limits just below the average driver's tolerance, so they have to speed.
2. Set fines just below the average driver's tolerance, so it's not worth their time to go to court over it.
3. Ignore all relevant law (such as having to spot speeders by eye before radaring them) in order to set up streamlined "speed traps" to catch the maximum number of people.
4. Make it as difficult as possible for people to dispute their tickets by shortening court office hours, setting very short intervals to file claims, and refusing to set trial dates by mail or phone. AND...
5. Manipulate, skew, and distort the traffic statistics in order to show that the system actually improves road safety.
All I can say to this is, if he does get photo radar back on the streets (God I hope not), then the most important thing is:
DISPUTE YOUR TICKETS!!
It's been shown that something like 3% of tickets are actually disputed, and the courts are already clogged. If everybody took their tickets to court, the entire system would collapse. The financial profitability of the speeding ticket system depends on all of the out-of-court settlements. But considering the insurance policies in Ontario, trust me, $100 isn't all you'll pay for a small speeding ticket.
That is all.
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My party schedule:
2009-02-21 - DJ Attention @ I'm So Popular
2009-06-18 - DJ Annoying @ People Need To Know Where I'll Be
2012-11-32 - DJ Insufferable ɸ Or At Least the Stalkers I Complain About
2048-06-66 - Spastic & Whocares ¶ Although I'm Actually Flattered
9999-45-81 - Tweaker Gimp ☼ I Probably Won't Even Go To This But I Have To Make Sure I Fill Up All The Available Space Here
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