So here we are, one of the planet’s leading economies, with state of the art everything for our legal system. Ever wonder when you gave government the permission to place us under constant surveillance? Cameras transmit ethereal images of judges in the courtroom who mete out the law to criminals inside the jailhouse, cameras watch the main lobby in the courthouse where security screening is tougher than airports, cameras in the courtrooms watch us watching the judge, cameras watch us walking in the hallways and parking our cars – god I haven’t seen any in the bathrooms but I wonder if they watch me when I go pee?
As CEO and President of Web Traffic Law, it is my responsibility to watchdog traffic enforcement mandates. Recent additions to photo radar/red light camera enforcement mandates has led me to ponder the question of the ages: which egg or chicken came first? Cameras to keep us safe or cameras to make money from us? My answer is short and sweet – cash is king baby! High octane judicial photography, that you and I pay for by the way, descended upon us in 1990 for one reason - to rake in millions of bucks, dough, moolah, scratch, bread, loot, clams – CASH - generated by politicos’ who have come to see police services as their budgetary golden goose. I think the whole notion of pretending to use speed/red light cameras “in the name of the law”, as Dudley Doright would proclaim, is an insult to us and especially to the generations of men and women who built the foundations of our judicial system.
How do you feel when some police official tries to tell you the cameras are making the roads safer while he stuffs the record high enforcement stats in his back pocket? You believe him don’t you? He is a policeman because after all. Well guess what – the total number of traffic tickets issued has reached a record high every year for the past decade, and is about to increase exponentially with the red light cameras now issuing speeding tickets. If the cameras were so damn effective slowing us down and making the roads safer, how come there’s more speeding and more red light tickets than ever before? It sure isn’t because the motoring public is responding to the ever increasing presence of these infernal cameras. It’s because traffic enforcement mandates to the police service are demanding a record number of tickets be issued every year to fatten the police budget and leave city hall more cash for other branches.
By the way, when the province legislated a change in law enforcement revenue flow a few years ago, that is having it go straight to the municipality rather than to justice minister’s branch that dispersed it, I was on my soap box warning everyone to watch out for a dramatic increase in annual ticket production. The obvious temptation to political greed showed itself very quickly and here we are!
Our roads are no safer than before, speeding is about the same as always, drivers are now braking on green lights - wreaking havoc behind them – and our police service becomes ever more alienated from the people it serves as it takes the heat for someone else’s greed.
What to do? Send Web Traffic Law those tickets and watch our charitable donations convert government greed into community wellness.
