Walking in Waterloo Region

[jamincan]

I would agree...it makes me wonder who exactly is the opposition to rationalizing our driving laws. Seems like everyone agrees drivers are terrible, yet somehow there is no willingness to strengthen laws. Seems like there is something going on there.

Any time there is discussion of red light cameras or even more so speeding cameras, everybody starts talking about it just being a tax grab. So there is another aspect of it.

To be fair, especially with speeding cameras, I don’t think most people understand that more care needs to be taken with automatically-enforced rules; so I’m concerned that speeding cameras would be used to enforce inappropriate speed limits rather than more appropriate limits. For example, somebody doing 50km/h past a school at midnight is not generally a hazard. But that being said, a lot of people don’t seem to like the idea that we might have to actually follow some rules when driving, not just when a patrol car is around. This also comes up with discussions around sharing the locations of speed traps. The debate gets sidetracked into a BS debate around whether drivers should follow rules all the time or only when the police are watching, rather than a more meaningful debate about what speed limits are appropriate on various roads at different times.

What is actually gained by being lax on the speed in school zones at certain times. Scarcely nothing in travel times, I'm sure? I'm far more in favour of a strict and unambiguous application of the law. If the speed can be increased at certain times, it should be signed as such. The current system we have is horrible, where whether you're charged largely depends on if you get seen, if the officer is having a bad day, and the colour of your skin or sex.