EDMONTON – Mayor Stephen Mandel blasted the deployment of photo-radar vans Tuesday, saying they’re too easy to avoid because they sit in the same places so often.
“It’s not just a sense of ‘drive out there and plunk my bum down,’ ” he told council’s transportation and infrastructure committee, saying speeding drivers quickly learn where to slow down for “five feet” so they aren’t caught.
“It needs to be a lot more creative . Citizens are frustrated with photo radar, which now I don’t think is doing the job it should have done because police have abdicated traditional forms of radar.”
Mandel later explained to reporters he has followed the same route to work for seven years, and eight days out of 10 a radar van is in the same spot.
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“There needs to be a better balance between traditional (radar) and the current style of photo radar . which I think sends a much stronger message to all of us about speeding,” said Mandel, who admitted he has been nabbed in the past.
“(With) a mix of the traditional, which is guys standing behind trees with the (radar) machines, you’re going too fast, you get a ticket right there, and the other, you get a ticket in the mail, you do slow down.”
But Insp. Brian Lobay said Edmonton’s 14 marked and unmarked photo-radar units change locations up to five times a day, depending on traffic conditions and other factors. The roads to which they’re sent are based on collision statistics and speeding complaints from residents.
While it may just be perception that they’re always in the same sites, Lobay said he’ll look into Mandel’s concerns. “You deploy these things over a period of time. Certainly, we have to review them to ensure they’re up-to-date. The mayor is pointing that out, we will look into that, whether some of our locations have to be reviewed.”
Police want money for two more traffic squads with a total of 20 officers so they can increase the amount of staffed enforcement, part of a plan to cut the number of fatalities and serious injury crashes five per cent by 2015.
Only one of the three existing squads is now used to catch bad drivers because the other two are needed for collision investigations, Lobay said.
But having an officer hand out a ticket is a good way to find people wanted for other offences, as well as making the roads safer, he said.
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