Toronto Police Phasing out Traffic Cops

Traffic Fatalities are up over 20% in 2013 as Police Management phases out Traffic Cops

You may have seen Toronto Chief of Police Bill Blair is concerned of the number of traffic fatalities in Toronto in recent months, but little explanation is placed upon the reasons for the increase, and police management puts all the blame on the public.

The theory and reasoning behind police traffic enforcement is a simple one. 

You put police officers on the streets to catch bad drivers, and you make the good drivers aware that the police are there and watching.

The drinking and driving RIDE program is the classic example.  You put RIDE spot checks where good drivers see them, reminding them not to drink and drive and the police catch the drunk drivers. 

RIDE Spot checks are usually done in clearly visible areas.  It's not only about catching the bad drivers, it's also about having a visible presence and reminding the good people not to drink and drive.

The same holds true for every day traffic enforcement, to keep the roads safe.

When you remove police traffic enforcement, bad drivers run wild and the good drivers relax and make mistakes.  Accidents happen, people get hurt, families destroyed...

Over the last 30 years the number of traffic police officers in Toronto has dropped dramatically, reducing the influence of police presence and traffic enforcement for driver safety in Toronto and the GTA.

As the roads and vehicles became safer, traffic fatalities are still a still a major cause of deaths in Toronto. Safer road designs are made, dramatic improvements in vehicle design and safety, new laws created, but the police have their agenda wrong and traffic fatalities are in the news again.

Over the last twenty years the Toronto police management have gradually removed traffic police officers from the streets of Toronto.  There are various reasons for doing so and the Toronto Police do not fully realize the implications or maybe it's about the money.  Traffic safety costs money, but whats the cost of a child's life.

In the 80's the Toronto Police had five traffic police stations spread throughout the city.

Each area of Toronto had it's own dedicated traffic unit, with 80 to 100 officers doing traffic enforcement, accident investigations and looking for drinking and driving motorists.

Four to five hundred traffic cops going out doing traffic enforcement sends a clear message to drivers, drive safe and obey the traffic laws, and the bad drivers got caught.

As such traffic accidents and fatalities during that time were much lower than they are in 2013 on a per capita/per vehicle basis.

It was during this period in history that the successful RIDE program came into being saving hundreds of lives over the years.

As the City of Toronto grows the police management are removing traffic officers

By 1996 the Toronto Police Service had closed all of the five traffic units.  

The police took the officers from these units and replaced them with just twelve (12) traffic officers in each division, while reducing their dedicated traffic unit in downtown Toronto to less than seventy (70) officers. 
 
From 1996 to 2013 traffic officers in each division has dwindled from twelve (12) officers to just two (2) traffic cops per division, the number of traffic officers in the main Traffic Services Unit sits around one hundred officers.

2014 means Less Traffic Cops Higher Fatalities

In 2014 the Toronto Police Service is looking to further reduce traffic enforcement.

Starting in 2014 the Toronto Police management is taking all of the traffic officers out of the divisions and sending them to the downtown Toronto Traffic Services Unit.  Something they did twenty years ago and learned didn't work.

History repeats itself, but the fallout is, that when the police stop looking and watching drivers, fatalities increase as we are seeing now.

As governments do, and certainly as it is in the Toronto Police Service, change is constant.  The Toronto Police are constantly changing things, not always for the better and sometimes going in a circle or the wrong direction. 

New managers e.g. new police supervisors look to make their "mark" by developing "new programs", to save money but at what cost to the people of Toronto?

The current "new thing" to remove and reduce traffic officers and traffic enforcement out of each of the local divisions and concentrate them in downtown Toronto means less officers working outside of the city core of downtown Toronto. 

The result of all this is traffic fatalities are going to continue to rise.  Toronto Police need to get back the basics using the tried and true formula that when a driver sees a police car they usually slow down and pay strict attention to driving carefully and properly.

Coming next

Toronto Police buy 30 Million Dollar Traffic Ticket Computer
OPP officers in Toronto are not writing traffic tickets
Toronto Police Chief working to reduce revenue for Mayor Rob Ford
Low Interest Rates mean less Traffic Ticket revenue for City of Toronto

About the Author

Chris Conway is a former Police officer in Ontario having worked with the Toronto Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police for 28 years as a traffic officer, street cop, breathalyzer technician and Detective.  Chris is the owner of OTT Legal and writes about traffic ticket and motor vehicle law in Ontario

Speeding Tickets - Another Holiday Weekend in Ontario

Although Canada Day arrived on a Thursday this year, many motorists took the Friday off in between and headed north to "cottage country in Ontario".

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)

This is an estimated cost of speeding ticket enforcement with an airplane. I really dont think that 250 per hour for a plane is right, its probably 1000/hour, but it gives you an idea...

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...

Traffic Tickets Slow down!

Good news for the drivers of the City of Toronto. Toronto police officers in preparation for the G20 Summit at the end of June 2010 are getting some relief from the army of officers sent out each day to ticket motorists for minor offenses.

Hundreds of uniform police officers are being deployed from traffic duties and speed enforcement to security for the G20. Many of the traffic officers had been assigned to doing motorcades for the dignitaries from other countries coming to Canada, and have spent the last couple of weeks doing training for the event. As such the usual thousands of speeding and traffic tickets issued each week has fallen off dramatically.

Expect the enforcement to resume after the summit in July 2010.