YOU SAID IT: Cameras don’t stop speeders

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CAMERAS DON’T STOP SPEEDERS

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A newscast last week announced a record (increased) number of speed-camera tickets issued in November.

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Rather than lamenting the dangers of wanton disregard for speed limits, news of the record came across as a point of pride. One interviewee had received two tickets within five days — being caught twice in that span by a speed camera. Two offences they were likely unaware of committing, not having been pulled over.

As I’ve iterated often, the speed camera program is little more than a cash grab. If it isn’t, why is the city so proud of the massive and growing number of tickets being issued? Why is it constantly adding more cameras to a clearly ineffectual “cure” for speeding? If they worked, there’d be fewer speeders.

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If we truly want to reduce speeding, the solution is cops with radar guns, on the road, pulling speeders over, issuing tickets in real time.

To those who lament we can’t afford more cops, if speeders are generating so much revenue, use that to fund more roadside speed stops.

The “two in five days” supports this contention. I would almost guarantee, if they had been pulled over the first time, the offender wouldn’t have been speeding a second time — five days later — before the first ticket even landed in the mail.

When are politicians going to offer some honesty and less hypocrisy, and finally admit speed cameras don’t reduce speeding and are a dismal failure in that regard? They’re nothing more than a cash grab, not reducing speeding while only generating mountains of cash. Little wonder they want to install more ineffective photo radar camera ATMs.

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MIKE ALAIN
OTTAWA

NOT THE NEW NORMAL

I have heard a few times from people, because of the mild fall and early winter coupled with the lack of snow, that we are in “the new normal”. Exactly how they have come to this belief is very easy; they have been consuming the climate change Kool-Aid for years and perhaps a couple of decades.

Well, it might be mild here, but over on the other side of the globe it is anything but. Finland is experiencing record-breaking cold and snow, Moscow the same, along with Beijing.

No, it is not the new normal here, it is just a mild spell caused by many natural factors, including El Nino. Winter is just getting underway and we could be in store for a ton of snow, freezing temperatures or both.

Don’t forget the ’30s had extreme heat and the Middle Ages were sizzling, probably because of all the work being performed by those evil carbon-spewing blacksmiths.

STEPHEN FLANAGAN
OTTAWA

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