“(photo Radar) Bill 65-safer School Zones Act”

Anyone heard of this bill being passed last year secretly last spring? Apparently they made the legislation for school zones only but also included community safety zones.

I doubt this will go well considering the opposition and the program being scrapped in 95.

Sorry but this legislation was not passed secretly, it was done so in an open forum like all other laws, and it was reported on by the press. It authorizes the use of automated speed enforcement in school zones and community safety zones where the limit is 80 or below, so at this point you will not see minivans parked on the side of the 400 series highways snapping pictures of every commuter outside of rush hour. Last I heard is that they will start rolling it out in about a year.

It didnt receive much media coverage when it was passed, it would have had more people outraged. Speed cameras havent proven effective at reducing accidents, but have proven to rake in more revenue. Here is some more info: http://nophotoradar.ca/

Now if you ask some seriously concerned parents how many accidents are caused by speed, they wont know the answer. MTO released in 2012 that it was only about 5.6% of accidents. Along with that pedestrians have to follow the same rules as cars do. If someone comes out suddenly when im travelling a normal speed and gets hit by my car, and fault determination rules them at fault, why are we obliged to install cameras and lower speed limits?

Is this related to the new lower school zone speeds I am seeing around such as 30km/h instead of 40km/h?

That could be part of it. Lowering speed limits to unreasonably low limits in many areas. I emailed a few mpp's. The scameras are out to get us.

After once reading people are charged with racing and stunt driving in school zones, it is a good welcome to me since I live around school myself.

We all have our right to our opinion, but It needs a lot of consideration but the municipalities keep lobbying for the $$

Dont believe me, read this article

I guess, but that will happen everywhere no matter what. I live near a school and hardly see any speeding and it is never enforced. I havent even heard of anyone get injured or killed from an accident in a school zone near where I live. The fact is speed cameras have been proven to be ineffective at reducing fatalities. Many states have removed them for cases of the company redflex which operates most of these cameras in the world for bribes involving city officials and the CEO of redflex.

The other thing is the definition of community safety zones. The municipalities have there own discretion at what they define as a community safety zone, but now they are saying areas under 80k. Many municipalities have lowered limits on some streets to unreasonably low speed and even the local police know when they are conducting speed enforcement.

I do agree that some municipalities focus on the tax revenues from speeding tic kets as opposed to the actual,safety aspect of it. In my last community there was a road that had a 60 km/hr limit on it when it clearly should have been an 80 zone. The rookie cops would just sit up there and drain their ticket books without actually doing anything for the safety of the community as a whole. Sadly rookie cops these days don't listen to us old 'uns the way we used to listen to our senior constables.

Having said that, I now live in the Uk where there are speed cameras everywhere and it really does keep the speeds down. The difference is that there are so many cameras here that if you speed you WILL get a ticket whereas random radar vans don't have the same effect because people like to roll the dice.

In the UK they also use alpr systems much more than here. Here only a small handful of cruisers have them. You gotta also remember in other places, speeds are set at a more reasonable rate than here. 90-100 on the main hwys here is too slow. Most people go 20 over, and cops usually dont ticket unless its 30 or more over. I also read in the UK that half of the speed cameras also arent even functioning.

That is true but as they are in big yellow boxes everyone assumes that there is a camera in each one and therefore doesn't speed. The thing that they are using now which is very successful is average speed monitoring over stretches of roads. You get an average speed limit of 40 mph on a motorway for roadworks and EVERYONE slows down....otherwise you simply are going to get a ticket,.