Driving around St. Albert, you can’t help but feel sometimes that you’re a fish in a barrel.
That’s because speed enforcement is more about exploiting the vulnerable than it is about promoting safety.
This month, enforcement officials got a new remote photo radar camera — it’s like a portable mailbox with a camera inside — that is better than the vehicle-mounted cameras because it doesn’t do as much damage to city boulevards and can be placed where vehicles can’t fit. That was the official explanation.
And no, the city didn’t get this new box because it’s easier to hide than a Jeep Cherokee — it’s just a better way to make our streets safer. That’s also the official explanation.
However, shortly after a story about the new speed deterrent box appeared in the paper, the Gazette got a call from a resident who witnessed it being deployed behind the bush in front of the Protestant school district office on Sir Winston Churchill Avenue, a common spot for radar vehicles. It seems the box isn’t just for those hard-to-reach spots after all.
Let’s face it — no one likes getting a photo radar ticket in the mail. For years, people have argued that this isn’t really a deterrent, because the punishment happens so long after the infraction.
Respected researcher Richard Tay, chair of road safety at the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering, has found evidence to the contrary. In two separate studies — one in Edmonton and another in Australia — Tay found that traffic accidents decreased by four or five for every 1,000 photo radar tickets issued. But he also found that speed enforcement by live officers led to a much greater decrease — 83 fewer collisions per 1,000 tickets.
The conclusion: photo radar is a deterrent, but not the most effective one available. Interestingly, Tay advocates that photo radar units be positioned to maximize safety, not revenues.
This brings us to the cash cow debate. Looking at the way St. Albert deploys its units, it’s hard to argue there isn’t a cash cow element at play. Local law enforcement personnel do their share of cherry-picking when locating their photo radar cameras. They sure know the spots where you’re more likely to be zipping along a bit too fast, regardless of whether you’re a safety hazard.
There are several spots around St. Albert where the posted speed limit is lower than you’d expect for the nature of the street. A prime example is Bellerose Drive, a four-lane arterial that splits residential subdivisions, thus earning a speed limit of 50 km/h. How convenient for photo radar operators, who are routinely located in the parking lot of the old Hole’s Greenhouse location, picking off people turning off Boudreau — where the limit is 60 km/h — who may not have noticed that the speed limit has dropped.
There are other locations in St. Albert where the speed limits are artificially low, such as McKenney Avenue and Giroux Road. The roads are very similar, yet for some reason unknown to the public, McKenney is posted at 50 km/h and Giroux is 60 km/h. And when you leave the city on these roads, the speed limit is a painstaking 60 km/h as drivers traverse the plains toward Ray Gibbon Drive. Those areas are also no stranger to radar action.
Another road designed to empty your wallet is Dawson Road. It’s a huge four-laner with hardly any lights and yet the posted speed limit is 50 km/h.
Mayor Nolan Crouse has been very consistent in expressing his stance that photo radar is a win-win as both a cash generator and a traffic calmer. He’s fully subscribed to the argument that, if you don’t want to pay photo radar fines, don’t speed, period.
It’s impossible to punch a hole in Crouse’s rationale — if you break the rules, you pay the fine. However, one could certainly argue that the rules, in this case, are counterintuitive to safe driving and are simply put in place to ensure cash flow for the city.
