These up-eds usually complain that photo radar would be fine if the radar worked properly. This one doesn’t even do that. It just complains that speed limits aren’t fair and now drivers have to change their behavior. jfc
It is true that drivers can avoid such tickets by sticking to the posted speed limits, but it is also true that drivers are hardly ever expected to strictly observe those limits.
…
It’s like the generally accepted contract between drivers and police – just drive at a reasonable speed and you’ll be fine – has been broken.
I get it makes life harder, and many places do require a car to function. If you are consistently a poor driver, unable to actively think about decisions you are making while operating that vehicle, you need to change your life. Whether that’s job you’re in, where you live, or how you work, that’s up to you. There are plenty of options, just people like to default to the easiest. StatsCan data:
75% of people in GTA commute to work in a car. 85% of those are the only person in their car. Average commute for those drivers is 25.5mins.
Lets take out the transit option, since the system can be shoddy and patched together. There are SO few people who carpool to work. If you work down in the GTA and commute in, odds are there is someone within a short drive of you that also commutes in near to your end point. There are facebook groups that are sadly empty for carpoolers, and there are lots across the city to park in and share the drive. You can split the drive, offer to pay, or come up with another solution not based around transit or other, system setups, and doesn’t involve you driving.
25.5mins at 50km/hr (assuming 0 traffic) is 21km. An e-bike is easily able to commute to and from that daily, and is far less likely to kill someone else.
Both of those are less easy options, and options that make most people uncomfortable, so they default to driving themselves.
That choice is the problem. If you are someone who can provide actual rationale for why those reasons don’t work (those who need to drive their personal vehicle for work, extreme mobility restrictions, extremely irregular schedule, etc), but for the vast majority of officeworkers, there are options they are choosing not to use because they’re less comfortable. So yes, I will fixate on individual choices, especially ones with such life-altering consequences. You can’t change the system if you don’t have more individuals on board to drive those changes and sustain them through carbrained idiots fighting against you.