Arrest the Speed Syndrome, Save Lives
The use of an electronic eye on speeding license plates produces results. It slows drivers and it saves lives. In the early 1990s the Province of Ontario instituted a photo-radar programme, detested by motorists and decried as a scheme to grab ready cash from unwary motorists. Too bad; drive too fast, endanger yourself and scores of other motorists, and it should cost in fines, darn right.
As a life-saving, cost-effective programme it got a bad press and people loved to shrilly denounce both it and the government that introduced it. The result being that the following government, that of hard-bitten Mike Harris, who also cut back welfare payments and other social programmes, was quick to bring it to a scudding halt and it died a quick death to the relief of hurried motorists.
Police are not that plentiful that they can be stationed anywhere and everywhere in the hopes of apprehending those drivers intent on jeopardizing public safety. Photo radar was a much unappreciated, but vastly effective deterrent. People hate paying fines, they're insulted when their driving skills are questioned, and they balk at restrictions to what they consider to be their freedom on the roadways of the nation.
Tough. A study published in the December 2005 issue of the journal Traffic Injury Prevention where researchers with the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College in New York City assessed the impacts of a large photo-radar programme in British Columbia revealed photo radar's economic effectiveness. The conclusion revealed a huge annual net benefit to British Columbians and an allied net annual savings for the Insurance Corp. of British Columbia.
Automated photo-radar traffic safety enforcement was seen as an effective way of managing traffic speed, reducing collisions and injuries and lifting the huge economic burden to society of rampant road speed. The study concluded that the focus of such programmes should remain safety, not economic benefit, and it effectively adds to growing research favouring photo radar as a countermeasure in traffic safety concerns.
A sizeable proportion of Ontarians now appear to favour the re-introduction of photo radar in an effort to improve traffic safety. An almost equally-large proportion is resistant to its re-introduction as a measure by which safety on the road can be enhanced. A decade ago a safety research report revealed that photo radar was responsible for a dramatic downturn in speed on Ontario roads.
The Ontario Ministry of Transport revealed that overall speeds dropped by approximately 42%, with a concomitant change among high-speed drivers resulting in a 71% reduction in drivers clocking over 150 km/h. If people feel they'll be caught, they're far more careful in their behaviours. Like Pavlovian training; be bad, get smacked with a fine.
The point of the exercise is to impress responsibility upon drivers, and if enacting a process of costly fines is the key to success, then we should re-introduce photo radar.
As a life-saving, cost-effective programme it got a bad press and people loved to shrilly denounce both it and the government that introduced it. The result being that the following government, that of hard-bitten Mike Harris, who also cut back welfare payments and other social programmes, was quick to bring it to a scudding halt and it died a quick death to the relief of hurried motorists.
Police are not that plentiful that they can be stationed anywhere and everywhere in the hopes of apprehending those drivers intent on jeopardizing public safety. Photo radar was a much unappreciated, but vastly effective deterrent. People hate paying fines, they're insulted when their driving skills are questioned, and they balk at restrictions to what they consider to be their freedom on the roadways of the nation.
Tough. A study published in the December 2005 issue of the journal Traffic Injury Prevention where researchers with the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College in New York City assessed the impacts of a large photo-radar programme in British Columbia revealed photo radar's economic effectiveness. The conclusion revealed a huge annual net benefit to British Columbians and an allied net annual savings for the Insurance Corp. of British Columbia.
Automated photo-radar traffic safety enforcement was seen as an effective way of managing traffic speed, reducing collisions and injuries and lifting the huge economic burden to society of rampant road speed. The study concluded that the focus of such programmes should remain safety, not economic benefit, and it effectively adds to growing research favouring photo radar as a countermeasure in traffic safety concerns.
A sizeable proportion of Ontarians now appear to favour the re-introduction of photo radar in an effort to improve traffic safety. An almost equally-large proportion is resistant to its re-introduction as a measure by which safety on the road can be enhanced. A decade ago a safety research report revealed that photo radar was responsible for a dramatic downturn in speed on Ontario roads.
The Ontario Ministry of Transport revealed that overall speeds dropped by approximately 42%, with a concomitant change among high-speed drivers resulting in a 71% reduction in drivers clocking over 150 km/h. If people feel they'll be caught, they're far more careful in their behaviours. Like Pavlovian training; be bad, get smacked with a fine.
The point of the exercise is to impress responsibility upon drivers, and if enacting a process of costly fines is the key to success, then we should re-introduce photo radar.
Labels: Realities
posted by Pieface @ 6:11 PM
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