The cost of a need for speed

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This article was published 22/05/2024 (843 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Who can deny the subtle joy of seeing an impatient bus-lane darter pulled over by the police for a ticket, five blocks after they’ve jauntily clipped by on your passenger side while you were trying to move over to legally turn down a side street?

Is there no greater pleasure than tooling along at the speed limit on the Perimeter while seeing a car that’s sped past you trying desperately to slow down as it enters the unblinking stare of a photoradar unit?

If there were a more particular German word than schadenfreude for that particular tingly experience, it could perhaps be speedenfreude.

However.

On the other side of the equation, there’s the frustration of staying within the flow of traffic, driving with all due care and attention, and seeing the flash of an automatic administrative cash machine that seems less about the safety of the roads, and more about having a device reaching into your wallet for a little violation taxation, regardless of the circumstances.

Maybe you grouse and ask pointed questions, like, is there actually empirical evidence that photo radar at traffic lights makes driving safer, or does the hurdy-gurdy of sudden stops at particularly equipped intersections actually make traffic more unpredictable and less safe? Or, maybe your analysis is of a more philosophical bent: if a car goes too fast where there isn’t another human being in sight, is there really a violation?

One clear determinant for whether automated camera tickets are the beauty or the beast is certainly whether or not you’re holding a violation notice in your hands.

And that’s what scores of drivers are finding out after a Winnipeg Police Services mobile radar system was set up to the east and west of St. Mary’s Road, where construction workers are building an overpass.

To be perfectly blunt, trying to work while tonnes of steel travelling at 100 km/h hurtle by you, putting you in clear and constant risk, must be terrifying.

The speed limit in that area drops from the normal 100 km/h to 80 km/h to help keep construction workers safe while continuing to allow traffic to move through the area. In the first six weeks the camera units were in operation, 14,183 tickets were bestowed upon a wide range of automotive miscreants, the tickets coming in descending numbers week-by-week as people became more familiar with the speed zone’s presence.

Oh, and fines are doubled in a construction zone.

“The numbers certainly highlight the problem,” WPS traffic division Insp. Marc Philippot told the Free Press. “However, I am encouraged to see the violations are trending downwards.”

“I’d rather see our community members spending their hard-earned dollars in other ways than paying fines and putting workers at risk.”

There is a grain of salt to be taken here: after all, after costs of the photo radar program are deducted, a portion of the fines goes into WPS coffers, “as the photo enforcement program is part of the Winnipeg Police Service, any net surplus is incorporated into the overall budget to fund other policing activities,” according to the WPS. And that net surplus is in the millions of dollars per year, with the police forecasting $12.4 million in photo radar revenues for 2023.

Is it a cash-grab or solely a traffic safety issue? Pragmatically, it’s mostly likely a little of both.

But there is a simple and universal solution, one that’s both better for your wallet and much, much safer for construction workers who have to work near busy highways.

Just obey traffic laws, drive within the speed limit, and at a speed that weather and road conditions allow.

Otherwise, at least smile for the cameras.