Again the OPP, Ontario Provincial Police sent out their army of officers with high tech equipment (laser beams, radar and airplanes) to stop the rush of drivers heading to the cottage.
Although the police have been enforcing the speeding laws of Ontario for years, and have increased their budgets, the police just haven't been able to stop the problem of speeding.
Motorists still speed.
With the money it costs to put a police officer, or a group of police officers out doing speed enforcement, there must be a better way.
Imagine what it costs to put an airplane into the air with a pilot and spotter, then 3 or 4 police cars on the road catching the speeders. The cost to stop one driver speeding on the highway can be well over 500 dollars.
Lets work this out
Airplane enforcement
- One airplane with fuel - 250 per hour (probably more..)
- One police pilot to fly the plane (rank of Sergeant 90k/year) - 45 per hour
- One Constable as spotter in the plane - 35 per hour
- Three Constables on ground to stop drivers - 105 per hour (35 x 3)
- Three marked police vehicles - 150 hour (50 x 3)
- Total Cost 585 per hour (estimated)
So for an eight hour shift speeding ticket enforcement on Ontario Highways can cost taxpayers close to five thousand dollars, and the real cost is probably more!
That's per day, imagine what the cost of speeding ticket enforcement is per year??
What about the cost of the training, the cost of sending the officers to the court, the cost of laser, and radar guns... It starts to add up to an incredible amount of money.
After sending out this army of officers day after day, year after year, isn't it about time that the government, the police and us the public started looking at other more effective ways of stopping speeding??
What about every new car having a speed limiting governor installed on it from the manufacture?
So that no one would have a car that is capable of driving more than 100km/h, or even make it 120km/h. Wouldn't that have a positive effect on speeding in Ontario? What about the number of lives that would be saved because no one is driving over the speed limit on the highway, who needs to go over 120km/h?
What about traffic calming, why doesn't the government put in traffic calming on every new road they are making? you know like speed bumps, planters, bicycle lanes. Shouldn't this be mandatory around any new school that is built?
I know we couldn't put traffic calming on 400 series highways but we can put traffic calming on other roads within the towns and cities?
When you start to look at speeding in Ontario, you start to realize that maybe there is another issue here.... Like money. Speeding tickets create fines, and the fines from speeding tickets go to the municipality where the ticket is issued.
Police Speeding ticket enforcement, having not changed in 25 years or more, its high time government looked at other ways of controlling the problem.
After sending an army of police officers out every day to write speeding tickets drivers are still speeding, and its not working...
