"85 … 86 … 87 … "
Const. Kevin Nicholls counts out the speed of an approaching car. He's standing slightly behind a tree, looking into the scope of a tripod-mounted, dual-lens, bug-eyed device.
With his fluorescent jacket, he's clearly a police officer doing traffic enforcement but he doesn't get much notice by approaching drivers on a popular road in the city's northeast quadrant. People clearly accelerate down the long, straight road, oblivious to the fact that they're under surveillance. That is, until, Nicholls steps out onto the lane and waves the driver to pull off to a side street so he can write up a speeding ticket.
Nicholls is doing speed reduction with a Pro Laser III infrared LIDAR system, a laser imaging detection and ranging unit, commonly known as a laser gun. It's the same sort of traffic enforcement that happens day in and day out through a variety of means.
In the modern world, there is a wide array of technologies available to the St. Albert RCMP, and they all play an important part in keeping the roads safe, say enforcement officials. Nicholls' job involves the use of both laser and radar systems, whereas elsewhere in the city photo radar units are employed.
The best and most reliable technology is also the oldest, he states.
"There's no substitute for manned enforcement," he said.
This opinion is reiterated by his supervisor.
"Ideally, in a perfect world, manned enforcement … is the most effective way of doing it," said Cpl. Don Murray, the officer in charge of traffic services.
"It's not necessarily the most efficient or practical way of doing it," he adds. "That's when we rely on our various automated enforcement tools to supplement our manned enforcement."
Tools of the trade
Nicholls spends his shifts alternating between driving around and working from stationary locations. In these spots, he sets up the laser unit. It doesn't take long to get results.
Within 30 minutes, he's pulled over four speeding vehicles, none of which are the stereotypical cherry red muscle car or souped-up convertible. They are grey and beige mini-vans, station wagons and four-door family vehicles.
When he does mobile enforcement, with the portable laser unit stowed safely in the back, Nicholls drives around in an unmarked police car with a dash-mounted radar unit. Thanks to the radar's relative speed determination capabilities, he can figure out who around him is speeding even though he isn't stationary.
Within about 10 minutes, he spots a truck driving toward him at a rate higher than 90 kilometres an hour in a 60-km/h zone. He notes that some people have radar detectors in their vehicles so they know when to slow down. Of course, that only works when his radar detection unit is on, he says. He turns it on and off frequently to remain "invisible."
In order to do a better job of enforcing the speed limits, it's important to also be unpredictable, he says.
The asphalt studio
Photo radar can do enforcement where live officers can't, Nicholls says.
The city uses a few different forms of radar traffic enforcement technologies and they are as visible as street lampposts, utility boxes and parked vehicles on the side of the road.
The red light cameras located at certain key troublesome intersections have also been using speed-on-green technology since last summer. Now these stationary poles can take pictures of your car if you either run a red light or speed through the green.
These intersection cameras photographed approximately 11,000 violators in 2010 alone.
The parked photo radar vehicles are familiar sights to St. Albert commuters also, as they represent the most obvious contingent of Murray's arsenal. Despite sitting still, these units are actually very active.
The radar senses a moving object's speed between its front and back bumper, and a film-loaded camera takes the picture automatically.
Since these vans are so familiar, the city now also uses a portable photo radar unit lovingly referred to as the "can camera" or "can cam." The 45-kilogram unit looks much like any utility box on the boulevard. It does the same job as the vehicle-mounted cameras except it's set up a short distance away from the van itself and its operator.
Despite appearances, all of this automatic equipment doesn't make for hands-free enforcement. It still requires someone behind the scenes, and that person isn't sitting back and reading the newspaper either.
The human element
No traffic enforcement technology is employed without trained personnel first undertaking a series of checks and balances, officers say.
"Bob" is one such photo radar van operator. He says he has four bosses: Affiliated Computer Systems (ACS) – the company that actually owns the equipment; the city; the RCMP; and the Commissionaires, the agency that he works for directly.
Just like Nicholls, Bob has to run a series of tests on the equipment at the beginning of his shifts to ensure everything is running up to speed, so to speak. And then, like Nicholls, he also does a series of rechecks and rebalances at the end of his shift.
Apart from verifying the calibration of the instruments, there's another simple reason why it's important to have a real live person sitting at the controls, he said.
"I'm actually observing the violation taking place," he said.
As far as Murray is concerned, the most important combination of human and technology is drivers and their speedometers. Put another way: people should pay more attention to how fast they're going. Beyond that, however, there will always be new tools developed to help the police in their pursuit of those who drive too fast.
"The only way that speeding is ever going to go away is if we had technology or if you were automatically levied a fine every time you exceeded the speed limit. That's not ever going to happen, nor is that the type of society I think we want to see," he said.
Murray believes St. Albert has pretty safe streets. Despite the thousands of speeders, the last traffic fatality was in late 2009. The last one before that was in early 2008. The vast majority of violators get away with the inconvenience of an impromptu stop along their commutes, a traffic ticket, and – Murray hopes – a lesson.
