What the Police, Officials and the media are saying
The police ran 4 commercials in 2005 (Safe Streets 2005 commercials). The first two mention violation reduction in speed at intersection and constructions sites. Violation have no bearing on safety and this is a safety program. The next adds claim accident reduction, we love to see the data because MPIC's data show an increase of 60%-113% at intersection cameras monitored by photo enforcement. They are probably using a year to year comparison which is not valid as there is not enough information. If you look only at year to year rather then a trend (5 year or more) you can pick almost any intersection in Winnipeg and claim a 30% larger drop on a given year, camera or no camera, so these statements are unqualified and very misleading.
Safe Street FAQ's: These are rebuttals of questions from the polices official website.
Is it unfair to charge the owner? I personally don't thinks so. Where does this lead to? Your car is used to rob a gas bar are you responsible? I total a car that does not belong to me as I'm running a red light does this mean the owner is responsible for the collision? Presently you can not even take responsibility for an offence with out written permission of the owner. As an owner you are responsible for insurance, maintenance and other things but you should not be held responsible for other peoples action or choices. The laws have been bent to allow mailed offences to vehicle owners to be a "lesser event" by not assigning points then ones handed out for the same offence by an officer.
Is this an invasion of my privacy? Sure it is, someone else is charged and informed as to my actions at a particular time and place. Camera's at gas station and mall do not normally identify the people that have been recorded and the information is not reported to someone else... at least I hope it isn't. How long until the present wet film camera's are "upgraded" to video camera s (for cost reduction reasons) with a direct link to the police. Automated face and license plate recognition are all ready here. There is nothing preventing misuse of the technology. And it is unlikely it will be advertised when they start to use it for other tracking purposes.
Why focus just on speeders? Good question. Not because it is a leading cause of collisions because it is not. Speeding over the limit is only sited in about 2% of all collisions. The government and the police state they are most concerned about the people traveling 25k over the posted limit as they are the most dangerous. These people should be identified and give a proper ticket with points, not the cars owner. Chances are something else is going on if they are going that fast and the police should be pulling them over to find out why. Instead they are out ticketing my retired father (who has not had a ticket for probably 30+ years) for driving 65kmh in the under posted 50kmh section of Grant Ave. at 10:30pm on Saturday in July, in a school zone, on dry streets, with no other traffic around, and they tell the public it's for the safety of the children! In 2004 46 officers were removed from the traffic division, and sent to other divisions where only part of their duties were traffic related. So we have fewer officers out looking for the really dangerous drivers. Why has the tolerance on photo radar been dropped form 13km over the limit to 9km over the limit? I'm guess it is not to concentrate on the 25kmh and over crowd. Could it be to help the city budget because photo radar issues more tickets then any other system and lowering the tolerance adds more safe drivers to the mix?
Do the intersection cameras photograph every vehicle? It is true at present the system in place only photographs the offending vehicle and any other non offending vehicle with in the cameras view. The issue here is mission creep. Many location around the world that use photo enforcement technology use digital video cameras instead of a film cameras. How long until ours go digital? Is it still ok if the picture is a video, how about if the video is used to check all the license plates of passing vehicles on the premise of curbing auto theft? is that ok? Now what if the video is used for face recognition on the premise of spotting criminals? is it still OK?...... what if they started looking for minorities because their country of origin produced a few terrorists? All this technology is here and in use today. The question is do we need/want it and what assurance and checks prevent it from going on right now with out our knowledge?
Does someone review the photograph? Yes but they can't be very good at it! A fried of mine received this ticket in the mail for a Chrysler Intrepid, Not a Mazda. May be they should be giving check the prescription of the glasses! Bad Ticket.
What happens in poor driving conditions? You get a ticket. Unlike a police officer who can observe not only the the road conditions at the time but can see the entire sequence of events, and thus make a judgment call as to if the driver really warrants a ticket. Two snapshots in time looked at a week later can not convey the whole picture.
Isn't this just a way to make money? Yes. The majority of people who are ticketed are safe drives. Roughly 80% of the "scofflaw" blowing through red light are doing it in the first second. Most intersections have a two minute all red phase. Lengthening of yellow light by as little as a few tenths of a second, has been proven to reduce red light running by as much or more then photo enforcement and this drop does not change much over time. As for speeding offences, many enforced areas are under posted based on the 85th percentile method. Playgrounds, school, and construction sites have had no issues in regard to over the speed limit accidents. People should all ways slow down in area's were there are children and construction but there is no data to support any problem to start with. The safe streets web site states "This is our objective: Put photo enforcement out of business!" The city/police can not tell you under what conditions this would occur, so not only can it not be an objective by definition it is a false statement.
How much will this cost the taxpayer? The police say nothing as it is self funding. I say millions, regardless if you call it a tax, a fine, or a user fee, it is money out of the consumers pocket that is not going to help the cities economy or safety.
And the point of all this? To make money. The city has all ready convinced the province to increase speeding fines by 44% when they found they were not making enough money (increased fines do not reduce violations). The police are using this new found wealth to fund other police programs not to improve anything related to traffic safety that could possibly reduce their income. Give all the proceeds to education and see how interested the police are in photo enforcement then. There is no study I have come across that shows location with higher fines have a better safety record or have few people committing those violations.