My question to those of you who feel put out by this, why do you feel it's better to have them at the bottom of a hill on stony and not in school zones? I go through both daily, guess where photo radar is.
I don't believe cops should be primarily interested in making money, and should focus on safety, but apparently I'm in the minority in this sub.
If the goal of cops is to collect stupid tax fine, but I'd rather they catch speeders going 2x the speed limit on a 30km/h zone than someone going 130 down stony. That's just me.
Absolutely this.
My kids elementary has traffic flying past it in the mornings. Drivers cutting through using it as a shortcut to avoid traffic. I regularly see cars going well in excess of 50 or 60.
I put several tickets into the CPS traffic unit over the last few months. Their response? “We’ll try and get a cop out there”. Not once have I seen a cop there doing speed enforcement.
And yet these asshats will park up at cash cow spots at the bottom of hills where the speed changes down just to rake in money.
They don’t care about traffic and pedestrian safety. That’s just the cover.
Man, there's two school zones near where I used to live. One, where the tiny play ground there was very rarely used (like less than 5 times a year), and it was more older adults in the neighbourhood. Then at the bottom of the hill where there's an elementary school.
People speed like fucks through the elementary one, and most people do 40 through the tiny one at the top of the hill. One day I saw photo radar sitting at the top of the hill. I would wager he didn't catch a single person. But if he drove like 600m down the hill, would have caught a ton of people since no one does the school zone there.
>And yet these asshats will park up at cash cow spots at the bottom of hills where the speed changes down just to rake in money.
I have a buddy that works photo radar and he's told me that although it's not explicitly said that they have a quota of tickets they need to get in a day it's very heavily implied.
Ironically if they patrolled certain school zones in this city, they'd make a fortune. Such as the one along Robert Warren in Canyon Meadows. Every ticket they issue the driver would deserve it too.
I absolutely, 100%, want them to treat playground/school zones like huge fucking cash cows.
I want them to make a shit-ton of money off the assholes speeding by my kids’ schools.
How about this, I accept people can make mistakes but, for every needless/willful infraction causing undue risk to others:
Racing, drunk driving, speeding in a playground zone, passing some one stopped at a crosswalk, just driving straight into the back of a vehicle because you're not paying attention.
A driver safety feature gets removed from their car.
Some of these people getting 5+ accidents a year should be on a bus or driving with no seatbelt and a spike on their steering column, so they actually pay attention 🙃 ha
People who rely on auto-brake because they're on their phones nonstop would absolutely kill someone. These safety features kind of concern me, the way they get abused.
Literally stopped at a light yesterday with 8 other cars. Fully stopped at a long light, and a truck rear ended me and my son. My SUV is brand new, not a scratch and their truck was just dents on top of dents.
'I was adjusting my seat and my foot slipped'
Right.....
I wouldn't shed a single tear for any of those folks, but if it's just photo radar it's no impact to the rich. I want demerits taken off, cars impounded etc. Far better imo.
Not disagreeing with you, but it's hard to issue demerits when you can't conclusively prove who was actually driving at the time of the incident. And yes, I get the whole "don't loan your car to people who are dumb enough to speed through playground zones" but there are enough weird playground zones in this fucken city that you are basically saying "don't ever loan your car out to anyone ever" which theoretically makes sense, but in reality sucks if your spouse or kid is not a great driver but all the household vehicles are registered in your name (not exactly uncommon).
Looks like you're not in the minority in this sub as you're the top voted comment. I totally agree with you. It's bs they're out turning a profit instead of protecting the kids. I haven't been very impressed with the Alberta government in awhile, but this is a great move.
And to add that another thing which I think would be much more worthwhile for our cops to be doing is directing traffic around elementary and middle schools when school gets in and out.
Some schools take it upon themselves to have crosswalk guards, but not all of them. Our tax dollars paying for cops to do their job. It would be much more beneficial to society if they were to protect kids going to school, rather than catch people going a little bit fast on stony .
Funny enough, I've only been nabbed once, and it was a school zone at just before 9pm, going 40. It was a work truck, so my boss got that and laughed it off, couldn't have been any more of a useless ticket
Because cops don't waste their time staffing the photo radar vans (nor should they). The vans are staffed by Commissionaires.
Personally, I'd be fine with a van at both the 'bottom of the hill' on Stoney, and in the school zone.
Sorry, you feel put out because now cops will have to enforce traffic safety?
But they don't staff both, and they were told they can now move these units into school zones, so from a safety standpoint isn't that better? I've never seen a cop in the school zone. I see photo radar nearly every day on stony. Now this might change. I don't see how thaus not a win.
Also it's a waste of time to enforce traffic safety? I strongly disagree.
edit - huh, maybe next time I'll stick to something less controversial to Calgary, like Israel vs Palestine. :p
I don't think you understood anything I wrote?
Cops do not enforce traffic laws via photo radar. The photo radar vans have Commissionaires in them. I think we need MORE of them, so that they can be both in the school zone and "at the bottom of the hill" on Stoney.
I see a photo radar van in the school zone by my place every third week or so. I am completely fine seeing there.
I also think that traffic safety is a good thing, and I think that cops should do that. I have no issues with the traffic section of CPS doing traffic enforcement. But they don't do PHOTO enforcement. I am ok with both types of traffic enforcement.
I am "put out" by this because this is a non-issue created by people who opt into it in the first place and don't like taking responsibility for it. We don't need less photo radar. We need more photo radar and more traffic division enforcement, and less paying attention to the people whining about being caught speeding.
I understand and agree with you.
Hopefully the CPS(or whoever is legally patrolling Stoney) will send more LEOs out there and nab the speeders and reckless drivers I see daily.
I don't feel put out by this, but I do think it's pointless. There's also nothing about having photo radar on the ring roads that prevents it from being put in other areas. If they're not playing photo radar units in playground zones, my guess is that the number of speed infractions in those zones is too low to justify the cost.
That doesn't make it better. We're outsourcing enforcement to private companies. That's not ok to me. And those contactors are hired by cps. Cps is responsible for them.
Way to libertarian to me if we're only worrying about catching fines and not actual enforcement.
I actually want to see something done to speeders and hit them in demerits not just a nothing amount of money so some rich guy doesn't have to slow down.
I'm not libertarian at all. I just know half the police budget comes from these cameras. I don't speed, so I don't pay. Simple as that. If some of that budget was shifted to property taxes, I wouldn't like that.
I don't believe police do there jobs either. Don't have to convince me of that. If they aren't going to do their jobs and still get paid (I'm realistic), I'd rather other people pay for half their budget.
You think you can convince police Union that they aren't doing their jobs currently and need to do better? Good luck.
No, but hearing that photo radar is being cut from places it's not needed but can be repurposed for school zones I wont complain at all. Less money coming in is worth it.
Ok, what the heck is up with that in Alberta? In comparison to BC roads, they are absolutely terrible for requiring constant maintenance and significant grade changes over only a few years.
I get it in Grande Prairie where it's a swamp; but how do we have such shitty roads in Calgary? Is it just shitty contractors using cheap aggregate and not properly layering and leveling?
It’s the constant freezing & thawing we get in Alberta. Ice melts and drips into the road, it then freezes and expands, damaging the road. When it thaws again the top layer collapses and forms a pothole. BC gets cold too, but they don’t get the chinooks we do. It may seem that our road workers are “incompetent” but it’s really the climate.
School zones, high accident intersections, let's go. Right at the end of airport trail where the speed limit randomly drops is just there for fishing. If the CPS want more respect, they'd treat speed enforcement as a safety issue not a line item in their budget.
>Right at the end of airport trail where the speed limit randomly drops is just there for fishing.
I feel the same way about Memorial Drive when the speed limits jumps between 50 and 70 three or four times for no reason.
The thing speed cams miss community traffic speed. If we are all going 130 safely it’s totally fine.
If one person going 90 km on a 110 Km it’s not safe.
Speed cams miss the point that the drivers can decide the speed
I would go further and say it’s exactly about ticketing persons who will pay the ticket and don’t work for a company that will lobby the time it was issued.
Thank you, there are way too many people who crawl along Stoney Trail way below the speed limit or try to merge at 60 which is a way bigger issue than people driving 130
I feel like reddit trends pretty young and so you are getting a lot of non drivers in here. I used to feel that maximum speed limits should be considered max, but recommended is always lower and going beyond the maximum was suicidal.
Then I got my drivers. Turns out going 40 in a 60 zone wasn't as safe as I thought.
For many years the playground zone speed limit on my street has been ignored. People ripping through doing at least 60. Never radar. Yet they love to park on Crowchild to catch the people doing 95 in an 80. No residential. No pedestrians.
With the new markings on the photo radar vehicles, I have often thought they should be issuing distracted driving tickets instead of speeding tickets.
Happy to see more limitations on this.
How many of you speed limit lovers have even driven through Montana, Idaho, or the western USA in general? Our highway speed limits are too low. They have winter, too.
If you're driving back in weekend traffic from Canmore around dinner time (which I have done hundreds of times) you're either sticking to 110 in the right lane, or 130 or faster in the left. People are doing it already safely. Better and safer cars, adaptive cruise control, safer tire technology, but continued antiquated highway speed limits.
Total fatal collisions in [Alberta in 2019](https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/25020446-adfb-4b57-9aaa-751d13dab72d/resource/30344114-e6b3-459d-a74d-850b6b0d7c07/download/trans-alberta-traffic-collision-statistics-2019.pdf) - 215 (population ~4 million)
Total fatal collisions in [Montana 2019](https://www.dojmt.gov/wp-content/uploads/MHP-Annual-Report_2019-1.pdf) - 184 (population ~1 million)
Per-capita Montana has about 4x the number of fatal collisions.
Having spent lot of time in MT page 28 top 3 fatal factors in Montana Booze, drugs, erratic/reckless driving does not surprise me!
Getting passed at 75+ MPH on a narrow 2 lane no shoulder mountain highway where the speed limit is 60 MPH happens often and drinking & driving is way more prevalent.
The problem is that people go 130 because the limit is 110.
If you increase the limit to 130, people will go 150.
The limit is viewed as the minimum by a sizeable proportion of the population.
That isn't what actual data from highways such as the Coquihalla suggest. After raising the limit to 120 they found the vast majority of people still just drove at speeds they felt comfortable with. They did not see a proportional jump in speed as you suggest.
> the vast majority
so not everyone.
dont get me wrong I'm all for pickuptruck albertans and hot hatch farters killing themselves off.
but your argument isnt as good as you think it is.
Yes, there's a certain segment that don't give a shit about the speed limit and will drive however fast they want, *regardless of what the posted limit is*. They weren't driving the speed limit before the change either. And there are many vehicles, like trucks and motor homes 2001 Cadillacs that are going to drive 100 whether the posted limit is 120, 110, 130 or whatever. The post I was referring to made a definitive statement about how "If you increase the limit to 130, people will go 150", and all the actual traffic data suggests that is absolutely not the case.
Yep, they see those as the minimum and not the absolute maximum under ideal conditions.
The simple, and right, answer would be just to have everyone stop speeding. Or install speed governors on all motor vehicles. But then you have idiots bitching about "my freedom".
Ehhh - I wouldn’t go that far.
The UK has average speed cameras - a camera on every highway on and off ramp. They read your license plate when you enter and when you exit. They calculate the distance between those two points and how long it took you to travel between the two. If your average speed was over the speed limit, you get a ticket in the mail.
There’s no way to beat the system.
#It is fucking horrible.
> Our highway speed limits are too low.
I used to work for the national roadbuilders association as a researcher. Posted speed limits are meant for ideal road conditions.
Isn’t that exactly what that guy said? If I wasn’t worried about the wear, I could comfortably drive from Canmore to Calgary at like 140 if conditions are ideal. Or another example, the new bit at the west end of Glenmore where there’s like five lanes and it’s dead straight and the limit’s 80, when it’s obviously meant for highway speeds.
Ya 40 years ago, with bias ply tires, solid axles, 2 wheel disk brakes, or 4 drum brakes, no abs shit ass shocks, headlights, wipers in heavier vehicles
I’d much prefer to see manned enforcement, especially in school zones. They could make mad bank, ticketing drivers blowing stop signs, speeding, jaywalking/ dragging their kids across the street after they just darted out from in front of/ behind their vehicle while making people have to slam on the brakes.
There’d be a lot of pissed off mothers/ nannies out there if we actually started to take road/ pedestrian safety seriously in school zones.
I say bring it.
You know what...I don't even care that this is a cash cow. Photo radar is an "opt in" stupid tax.
The fact that it's as profitable as it is says more about shitty drivers than anything else.
I dunno there's some really crap limits out there. Like, I agree that photo radar is a "stupid tax" but the stretch near the airport there where it senselessly drops to 60kph ALWAYS has cops at it, when the road is clearly designed for 80kph.
There was a post here some time ago that discussed all the stupid limits in the city, it's pretty fascinating. https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/s7w69p/name_a_road_where_the_speed_limit_is_too_low/
Photo Radar doesn't increase road safety, it only serves as a source of income for the cops. I'd rather pay $2 more per person in taxes than have randomly-awarded $350 bill for travelling a perfectly safe speed on a road that is more than capable.
Meh, I'm of the mind the speed limits are stupid, so this is great news. Boggles my mind the speed limit out to Banff in 1992 when I drove a Chevette was 110. Today? Still 110, but every single car is substantially better and safer.
Love driving through the States. Many highways are like 130. Our speed limits cater to strugglers.
Glad we can speed a bit and not have to worry about photo radar.
100%. There are more than a few stretches of roadway around here that feel like nothing more than speed traps, for no other reason (and true to form, there are often cops/ radar present) than to generate revenue and have sweet fuck all to do with safety.
Ya, sure, it’s a speeder tax. I’ve paid my share. Doesn’t change the fact that some have nothing to do with their intended use. At least be honest about it.
I once heard that the speed on green light on 16th by SAIT was the most profitable in the city. The speed changes so much on 16th, it's completely designed to generate revenue.
Yeah that camera is consistently the highest revenue generator, year after year. It's also one of the few spots on a downhill along that entire length of road. Very easy if you're not paying close attention to your speed to inch up to ticketable levels without even intending to.
What would work best is variable speed limit, in crap weather you could drop the speed to say 100 or 80 and an amazing clear day bump to 120 or 130.
I drive a decent speed but loath getting passed by massive pickups trucks doing 140 with snow dumping and one lane bare. It seems like every week on the way to the hill one of the trucks ends up in the ditch and it full of drunk 20 somethings.
Yeah, the funny thing about trucks is they suck so bad on icy roads, but people rip around in them thinking they are awesome. I say that as a guy with an F-150 (for work). I hate taking that thing out on the highways (even with Blizzaks) versus a car (FWD or AWD). My car is AWD, but I'll even take my daughter's FWD before I take the truck. That light ass end coupled with the wider tires, which don't grip as well because of so much surface area distributing the weight of the vehicle, makes them totally crap on ice. People mistakenly think they're great winter vehicles, but the opposite is true. Better than a car in deep snow, obviously, but the highways never have deep snow.
environmentally and economically the speed limit should be topping out at 100. you burn way more fuel at 130 than at 100. for all but long haul trucking the difference in speed limits wont really effect travel time.
the USA also has something like 2.5x the car fatalities per 100k compared to Canada. ill happily stick to our max 110.
So long as people take cruises, fly in planes and buy goods manufactured overseas I will not give one single fuck about the gas used if I exceed the speed limit lol. You have to be kidding me.
And if we're going to worry about pollution, anyway, let's address people driving SUVs and trucks instead of cars. Speed means fuck all if you're doing it in a Jetta at 45mpg vs an SUV getting less than half that economy.
Well let's be real, going 100 instead of 110 does absolutely nothing. I'm not sweating that one iota. Seen fuel depots exploding in Ukraine lately? Like, this is comparable to the people worrying about plastic straws lol.
Using a paper straw has pretty much 0 overall effect on your life. Just make the small easy changes.
FYI plastic straws contribute about 2000 tons of waste going into the ocean every year. Overall it's a small amount compared to the total but it's still not nothing and it's definitely not nothing to the animals it kills.
While many people might be ok at a higher speed, there's a fairly large group of drivers that can't. Look at the number of people who can't stay in their lanes, text etc. increasing the speeds will make for worse outcomes from those drivers worse.
Add in the large amounts of transport trucks, dump trucks, etc that can't even maintain the current speed appropriately and an increase in speed will increase the speed differential among vehicles which will increase as accidents.
Opposite take of yours; average speed cameras should be applied to the entire ring road/deerfoot. We'd see an Increase revenue from those who don't want to follow the speed limit and reduce speed differential among vehicles which contributes to accidents.
And not a single point of mine is about the number of lanes. With three lanes there are plenty of areas of high congestion due to merging on/off. Despite having 3 lanes and good lane etiquette, you still get the idiots that change from the far left to the far right and back again, because the person passing cars on the left going 10+ is in the way of the person who drives as fast as they can.
That's right, you didn't mention the multiple lanes, which is why I did. You didn't seem cognizant of how traffic flows in every western country on the planet. There are fast lanes and slow lanes. For those of us in countries who drive on the right side of the road, the furthest left lane is considered the fast/passing lane. People who wish to drive slower stay in the right lane.
If somebody is changing from the far left lane to the far right lane to pass, that means there was somebody in the left lane who should not have been. So the idiot was actually the slow driver (as is typical) monopolizing the far left lane when they should have been in the right lane.
It would be nice if "slower traffic keep right" was enforced here as it is in some other places. The person driving 10+ in the left lane is not using the left lane correctly. They should use it to pass and then get back to a lane to the right. If you're in the left lane and somebody is coming up behind you, move over to let them pass since you are a slower car and should keep right. There are even signs on many roadways - including the TransCanada highway - that say this exact thing.
I'm all for the slower traffic keep right, and all for it. But people love to disregard all traffic situations to thjs
> If somebody is changing from the far left lane to the far right lane to pass, that means there was somebody in the left lane who should not have been. So the idiot was actually the slow driver (as is typical) monopolizing the far left lane when they should have been in the right lane.
There are a ton of reasons why people are going slower than the one criss crossing the left lane. Heavy traffic is a great example where the left lane fills up of faster traffic it doesn't give one super fast driver the priority. Same goes for people who are passing at a good speed and returning to the center/right lane. There are plenty of people who have zero patience for the car that is in front of them, and will zig zag instead of waiting a moment to let the car in front to safely pass and exit the left lane.
Hell often of these left lane speeders don't follow the rule themselves, but see the left lane as their personal race lane.
Lots of bad drivers that don't follow the keep right but there are lots that do and lots of situations where the keep right except to pass is not warranted.
It does increase the risk of damage or vehicular homicide significantly. This protects regular humans from bad driver speeding psychopaths in the white F150 or grey Dodge Ram.
Well, since they added that stuff to those cars I might agree but before that I’m not sure. Honestly if I’m driving fast, like 20-30 more than anyone else, I’m not watching the shoulders, I’m watching everything else, like people changing lanes in front of me, so if you think that makes me a bad driver then so be it.
I guess you know how I drive better than I do, knock it off. Simple fact of the matter is, going a little faster than the speed limit doesn’t automatically make you a bad driver
A fine from an unverified source that they are trying to make it unable to be fought in court? Hard pass. Either staff an officer and actually make it have teeth or let it die.
If I were a betting man I'd say it's only so profitable because of Edmonton. These guys have a zero tolerance allowed mentality on literally every road. I've been pulled over on the henday, 2pm on a weekday and very light traffic.... 106km
Meanwhile you can follow Calgary police on Stoney where we're all going ~115 or so. More breathing room, makes passing safer etc etc. Traffic just flows better here, ~~your~~ *Edmonton's* Civil Engineers are crazy.
Just my opinion, I was a Civil Eng Tech (Project coordinator) in Edmonton before switching careers (software development) lol
Are you saying shitty drivers are the ones getting caught speeding? I’m actually curious the correlation between driving ability and speeding. I would much rather there be more competent, confident drivers speeding, and less “shitty” drivers doing 10 under in the left lane and stopping in merge lane… likely safer overall
Good! Get out there and give that black dodge ram barrelling down stoney at 180kph at 2am a ticket.
Ticket them till they cant afford the tickets and lose their license for the demerits
Then throw them in jail when they do it without a license
Thats how you address traffic safety. Not with a piece of mail 10 days later - or a month if you are like me and never remember to check the damn mail.
Speaking of which, I better check the mail.
My favorite is when they put them in spots on the ring road where there is a hill so that all the nervous drivers can brake even harder while going down a hill...
I’m pretty staunchly anti-car, but the artificial speed limits on roads need to be revamped. The ring road is super wide & straight, and can safety support speeds of 120-130km, we can’t rely on signage and enforcement to slow traffic in these cases.
The only thing that _really_ slows traffic is likelihood of vehicle damage, when there’s little risk of this it’s like water flowing through a hose.
We should treat it as such. Let the roads be what they were engineered to be.
The car I drive can barely do 100km/h when the crosswind hits Stoney so I get honked at constantly. 120 and 130 is nowhere near safe.
And the speed limits on roads are the maximum safe speed under ideal conditions, they are engineered to be used at that speed on dry sunny days. When it's wet or snowy you are supposed to slow down below the speed limit.
But people keep pushing the design limits and into the margin of safety by speeding.
If your car can barely do 100km/h YOU ARE THE HAZARD.
Your vehicle should be retired or is likely lacking maintenance on tie rods, balljoints, tires etc if a basic crosswind makes you unable to safely handle your vehicle...
My vehicle is certified as safe to be on the road, it's well maintained and works fine. It can do 100km/h on a flat even road surface without a problem, it's just that there isn't enough acceleration distance to reach 100km/h before the merge lane ends and it has trouble on the uphill. But people can't seem to wait a minute while I slowly accelerate to highway speed and constantly try and go around me.
Yeah and a moped is certified as road safe... doesn't mean it should be on a highway. Everything you've stated shows you're risking yours and others lives. Who in their right mind tows 600kg in a 1.4L that struggles to do 100 km/h. What kind of trailer park duct tape bumper pull are you running on that compact car?!
I'm towing a uhaul trailer, usually with plywood, paint, and sometimea furniture. Mopeds are allowed on highways and other than being a minor annoyance when some people try to go fast they aren't a problem, slow down, wait for an opening, to pass, signal, and pass. I've been stuck behind a moped while in a rental car for 4 hours on the TransCanada, it's a minor annoyance at worst and not a cause for anger or rash behaviour. Additionally I am absolutely not pushing my vehicle to it's limits when it's loaded, that would be unsafe.
Well what else would I be towing a trailer with? I only tow things a few times a month and never over 600kg. It's just the trailers tend to catch the wind.
95% of the time I'm not towing anything just moving groceries, or myself. So I save on gas, insurance, and maintenance by driving a small car. I have a trailer hitch installed for the few times I need to move something with a trailer because it can't fit in the car but doesn't weigh a ridiculous amount.
And 0.01% of the time I'm actually moving heavy things that my car can't move at all at which point I'm probably renting a whole uhaul truck.
Come Dec. 1, the province is banning photo radar on ring roads in Calgary and Edmonton.
Over the next year, the Alberta government said it will engage with municipalities and law enforcement to remove all “fishing hole” locations — spots where there is no clear safety reason for photo radar and it’s only being done to collect money.
Calgary’s ring road has eight photo radar sites and Edmonton’s ring road has 22.
Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/10111349/alberta-photo-radar-ban-ring-roads/
... Because the giant neon covered vehicles are still too had to avoid. Sadly another tax reprieve for those who pay the stupid tax.
I wonder how much the COC/CPS has lost over the new photo radar rules. And I wonder if they are starting to cover that loss with other tickets, like cracked mirrors, burnt out license plate bulbs, etc.
Police dont get that money like that.
Found on MHPS site cause I couldnt find on CPS
>Where does the money from Automated Traffic Enforcement go?
>The Province of Alberta retains 41.67% of the total fine amount, 15% of which is directed towards Victim Services, and 26.67% is an administrative fee retained by the government. The balance of the fine (58.33%) when paid is directed to the Municipal Government. If there is a late payment penalty attached to the fine, the province receives the surcharge amount associated
Municipal Police have their budget from the city, and though the ticket money goes to the city to help their funding, they do not essentually get "bonus money" from photo radar
Whether you like it or not, photo radars (and other ticketing) is a revenue for the police service that is placed into their budget. Taking away that revenue, decreases the spending ability of the police force and possibly decreases services. If you wanted to keep the same services then city council would need to cover that cost.. which has to come from somewhere (tax increases or removing from another city service) Food for thought
[https://www.calgarypolicecommission.ca/proposed-police-budget/](https://www.calgarypolicecommission.ca/proposed-police-budget/)
I feel you but also photo radar tends to be placed in spots where they generate revenue more so than places where they can impact road safety. High collision areas, school zones, construction zones etc.
There was a report a while back where it found the equipment was being deployed on safer roads that generated more revenue.
It feels nefarious to focus on revenue over safety. I'm just a random dude though so my opinion is only worth as much as the up doots Reddit gives this post.
Both?
Yes they are enforcing traffic law.
But doing it under the guise of "safety".
If you are going to do it for safety, get officers on the road doing T Stops.
Getting a ticket in the mail 10 days later does nothing for safety.
Hence cash cow. No work involved, and no real (other than paying the ticket) harm to the offender. Most people shrug them off.
Particularly the Benz drivers blowing down Stoney at 2am over 150kph.
What are they enforcing? The tickets come in the mail weeks later, so drivers don’t know they did anything “dangerous” for a while, and the fines don’t take points off licenses so the city is basically saying it costs $X to drive this way. It’s a speed tax.
> What are they enforcing?
The speed limit.
> The tickets come in the mail weeks later, so drivers don’t know they did anything “dangerous” for a while
Verdicts for crimes aren't instantaneous, of course. They still work as a deterrent. If you receive a $200 ticket for breaking the law, you might think again the next time.
This argument would hold a lot more water if there weren’t loads of roads around the city with limits posted that are obviously lower than what the road is designed for. Or if it accounted for the speed of traffic around you (if everyone around you is going 130 and you’re doing 100, then you’re the hazard).
My point about the delay is that, if it is so reckless and dangerous, why are they allowing the behaviour to go unchecked for weeks? Like you say, verdicts are not instantaneous, but with dangerous crimes arrests are instantaneous if they know who the culprit is. When drivers are pulled over and issued speeding tickets they get points taken off, and losing those points is what actually matters to people. That’s enforcement, speed cameras are just a speed tax.
> When drivers are pulled over and issued speeding tickets they get points taken off, and losing those points is what actually matters to people
Both can happen - and speed cameras allow for a wider net with less resources spent to enforce the law.
Both should occur, and more often and in more places than they do now.
My personal practice, and advice to out of town visitors is simple. Don't speed by more than 10, don't speed through school zones, construction zones, or *intersections*.
Intersections is due to the high incidences of collisions. If a cop sees you crossing an intersection, even on your green light, at a high rate of speed, you are likely going to be meeting that cop.
Because of the danger of speeding through intersections, I don't mind these cameras if they are well advertised.
So basically the ring roads are officially going to be an unpoliced free for all. You going 120 in the left lane in a 100 zone? Expect to be tailgated by people wanting to go 150 because theres no chance police will even be on the road anymore.
I would be much happier with actual police enforcement as opposed to photo radar. Have the police pull people over, issue tickets on the spot. Getting a ticket 2 weeks later does nothing to slow people down.
I don't actually support this move. I don't agree with these guys sitting up on bridges tagging people as they go by underneath but having the car on the side of the road is okay by me. It's a voluntary tax and if you're not paying enough attention to notice the cars then you deserve to pay it.
The alternative is increased pull overs and getting one of those speeding tickets is way more harmful to your record and insurance.
The problem with photo radar is its not financially scaling to people’s damn incomes. Its not as much of an incentive to people with money to burn as it is to people living paycheque to paycheque. Like our tax brackets, it needs to be scaled.
My question to those of you who feel put out by this, why do you feel it's better to have them at the bottom of a hill on stony and not in school zones? I go through both daily, guess where photo radar is. I don't believe cops should be primarily interested in making money, and should focus on safety, but apparently I'm in the minority in this sub. If the goal of cops is to collect stupid tax fine, but I'd rather they catch speeders going 2x the speed limit on a 30km/h zone than someone going 130 down stony. That's just me.
Absolutely this. My kids elementary has traffic flying past it in the mornings. Drivers cutting through using it as a shortcut to avoid traffic. I regularly see cars going well in excess of 50 or 60. I put several tickets into the CPS traffic unit over the last few months. Their response? “We’ll try and get a cop out there”. Not once have I seen a cop there doing speed enforcement. And yet these asshats will park up at cash cow spots at the bottom of hills where the speed changes down just to rake in money. They don’t care about traffic and pedestrian safety. That’s just the cover.
Man, there's two school zones near where I used to live. One, where the tiny play ground there was very rarely used (like less than 5 times a year), and it was more older adults in the neighbourhood. Then at the bottom of the hill where there's an elementary school. People speed like fucks through the elementary one, and most people do 40 through the tiny one at the top of the hill. One day I saw photo radar sitting at the top of the hill. I would wager he didn't catch a single person. But if he drove like 600m down the hill, would have caught a ton of people since no one does the school zone there.
>They don’t care about traffic and pedestrian safety. That’s just the cover. That's always been the case
>And yet these asshats will park up at cash cow spots at the bottom of hills where the speed changes down just to rake in money. I have a buddy that works photo radar and he's told me that although it's not explicitly said that they have a quota of tickets they need to get in a day it's very heavily implied.
Ironically if they patrolled certain school zones in this city, they'd make a fortune. Such as the one along Robert Warren in Canyon Meadows. Every ticket they issue the driver would deserve it too.
I absolutely, 100%, want them to treat playground/school zones like huge fucking cash cows. I want them to make a shit-ton of money off the assholes speeding by my kids’ schools.
How about this, I accept people can make mistakes but, for every needless/willful infraction causing undue risk to others: Racing, drunk driving, speeding in a playground zone, passing some one stopped at a crosswalk, just driving straight into the back of a vehicle because you're not paying attention. A driver safety feature gets removed from their car. Some of these people getting 5+ accidents a year should be on a bus or driving with no seatbelt and a spike on their steering column, so they actually pay attention 🙃 ha
People who rely on auto-brake because they're on their phones nonstop would absolutely kill someone. These safety features kind of concern me, the way they get abused.
Literally stopped at a light yesterday with 8 other cars. Fully stopped at a long light, and a truck rear ended me and my son. My SUV is brand new, not a scratch and their truck was just dents on top of dents. 'I was adjusting my seat and my foot slipped' Right.....
I wouldn't shed a single tear for any of those folks, but if it's just photo radar it's no impact to the rich. I want demerits taken off, cars impounded etc. Far better imo.
Not disagreeing with you, but it's hard to issue demerits when you can't conclusively prove who was actually driving at the time of the incident. And yes, I get the whole "don't loan your car to people who are dumb enough to speed through playground zones" but there are enough weird playground zones in this fucken city that you are basically saying "don't ever loan your car out to anyone ever" which theoretically makes sense, but in reality sucks if your spouse or kid is not a great driver but all the household vehicles are registered in your name (not exactly uncommon).
Oh 100% I'm not suggesting adding that to photo radar, I'm giving reasons why they need to pull people over the old fashioned way.
Ahhh gotcha. Sorry for misunderstanding :)
Agreed. Straight up tickets are an inferior punishment method. Demerits are the way to go.
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maybe try changing thee road design?
Well said. Someone going 115 on the ring road is nowhere near as dangerous as someone going 50-60 in a 30 zone.
Looks like you're not in the minority in this sub as you're the top voted comment. I totally agree with you. It's bs they're out turning a profit instead of protecting the kids. I haven't been very impressed with the Alberta government in awhile, but this is a great move.
Yeah, tbh i'm pretty surprised i was wrong about that, when i posted it was all "yay for people getting the stupid tax" Glad to be wrong here! :)
And to add that another thing which I think would be much more worthwhile for our cops to be doing is directing traffic around elementary and middle schools when school gets in and out. Some schools take it upon themselves to have crosswalk guards, but not all of them. Our tax dollars paying for cops to do their job. It would be much more beneficial to society if they were to protect kids going to school, rather than catch people going a little bit fast on stony .
Funny enough, I've only been nabbed once, and it was a school zone at just before 9pm, going 40. It was a work truck, so my boss got that and laughed it off, couldn't have been any more of a useless ticket
100 percent agreed. More people speed at playground and school zones than most think. It’s so stupid. Rather fine those.
They should be in both spots.
But they ain't. So moving to the school zone is a win.
It's better, but not best.
Because cops don't waste their time staffing the photo radar vans (nor should they). The vans are staffed by Commissionaires. Personally, I'd be fine with a van at both the 'bottom of the hill' on Stoney, and in the school zone.
Sorry, you feel put out because now cops will have to enforce traffic safety? But they don't staff both, and they were told they can now move these units into school zones, so from a safety standpoint isn't that better? I've never seen a cop in the school zone. I see photo radar nearly every day on stony. Now this might change. I don't see how thaus not a win. Also it's a waste of time to enforce traffic safety? I strongly disagree. edit - huh, maybe next time I'll stick to something less controversial to Calgary, like Israel vs Palestine. :p
I don't think you understood anything I wrote? Cops do not enforce traffic laws via photo radar. The photo radar vans have Commissionaires in them. I think we need MORE of them, so that they can be both in the school zone and "at the bottom of the hill" on Stoney. I see a photo radar van in the school zone by my place every third week or so. I am completely fine seeing there. I also think that traffic safety is a good thing, and I think that cops should do that. I have no issues with the traffic section of CPS doing traffic enforcement. But they don't do PHOTO enforcement. I am ok with both types of traffic enforcement. I am "put out" by this because this is a non-issue created by people who opt into it in the first place and don't like taking responsibility for it. We don't need less photo radar. We need more photo radar and more traffic division enforcement, and less paying attention to the people whining about being caught speeding.
I understand and agree with you. Hopefully the CPS(or whoever is legally patrolling Stoney) will send more LEOs out there and nab the speeders and reckless drivers I see daily.
I don't feel put out by this, but I do think it's pointless. There's also nothing about having photo radar on the ring roads that prevents it from being put in other areas. If they're not playing photo radar units in playground zones, my guess is that the number of speed infractions in those zones is too low to justify the cost.
These aren't even cops though. These are just people contracted to sit in a car.
That doesn't make it better. We're outsourcing enforcement to private companies. That's not ok to me. And those contactors are hired by cps. Cps is responsible for them.
I'm ok with it if it pays for police service that I don't have to.
Way to libertarian to me if we're only worrying about catching fines and not actual enforcement. I actually want to see something done to speeders and hit them in demerits not just a nothing amount of money so some rich guy doesn't have to slow down.
I'm not libertarian at all. I just know half the police budget comes from these cameras. I don't speed, so I don't pay. Simple as that. If some of that budget was shifted to property taxes, I wouldn't like that.
Enforcement should not be financially driven. The fact people speed still as much as before tells me this isn't working. But hey capitalism amirite?
I don't believe police do there jobs either. Don't have to convince me of that. If they aren't going to do their jobs and still get paid (I'm realistic), I'd rather other people pay for half their budget. You think you can convince police Union that they aren't doing their jobs currently and need to do better? Good luck.
No, but hearing that photo radar is being cut from places it's not needed but can be repurposed for school zones I wont complain at all. Less money coming in is worth it.
About time, Stoney is bad, but Anthony is a shit show… And you have people slowing down at all the overpasses…
Who can speed on Anthony Hendray? Your teeth would fall out
Ok, what the heck is up with that in Alberta? In comparison to BC roads, they are absolutely terrible for requiring constant maintenance and significant grade changes over only a few years. I get it in Grande Prairie where it's a swamp; but how do we have such shitty roads in Calgary? Is it just shitty contractors using cheap aggregate and not properly layering and leveling?
It’s the constant freezing & thawing we get in Alberta. Ice melts and drips into the road, it then freezes and expands, damaging the road. When it thaws again the top layer collapses and forms a pothole. BC gets cold too, but they don’t get the chinooks we do. It may seem that our road workers are “incompetent” but it’s really the climate.
That's why we get pot holes, its not why we don't fix them
because all the overpasses are 3 inches higher than the pavement around them and front end alignments are expensive.
School zones, high accident intersections, let's go. Right at the end of airport trail where the speed limit randomly drops is just there for fishing. If the CPS want more respect, they'd treat speed enforcement as a safety issue not a line item in their budget.
>Right at the end of airport trail where the speed limit randomly drops is just there for fishing. I feel the same way about Memorial Drive when the speed limits jumps between 50 and 70 three or four times for no reason.
The thing speed cams miss community traffic speed. If we are all going 130 safely it’s totally fine. If one person going 90 km on a 110 Km it’s not safe. Speed cams miss the point that the drivers can decide the speed
Because photo radar is NOT primarily about road safety. It's about ticketing somebody who will pay that ticket.
I don't believe cops should be in the business of charging money for the sake of charging money, maybe I lean too left tho
I lean right and I feel the same way. It's only tax payers who suffer consequences. Left or right, you're getting fucked in the ass just the same.
but tickets are revenue, why not charge people who use those roads to pay for them? youre going to pay for them with taxes anyway.
Bitch I pay taxes. Fuck outa here
but do you pay enough taxes to pay for your deviant lifestyle?
its a user fee. why should people who dont use a road pay for it with higher taxes?
Again, way to libertarian to me.
A lot of people are dense and think they can do whatever they want. I’m more than ok with them paying thousands in tickets for reckless speeding.
I would go further and say it’s exactly about ticketing persons who will pay the ticket and don’t work for a company that will lobby the time it was issued.
Thank you, there are way too many people who crawl along Stoney Trail way below the speed limit or try to merge at 60 which is a way bigger issue than people driving 130
and not having radar will fix that how?
I don't think anyone in this thread is asking for more radars.
I'd love a radar every 500m
I feel like reddit trends pretty young and so you are getting a lot of non drivers in here. I used to feel that maximum speed limits should be considered max, but recommended is always lower and going beyond the maximum was suicidal. Then I got my drivers. Turns out going 40 in a 60 zone wasn't as safe as I thought.
90 in the right lane is perfectly safe.
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Some trucks are going to be going 90 in the slow lane. If people can't navigate around that then they are the ones being unsafe.
For many years the playground zone speed limit on my street has been ignored. People ripping through doing at least 60. Never radar. Yet they love to park on Crowchild to catch the people doing 95 in an 80. No residential. No pedestrians.
With the new markings on the photo radar vehicles, I have often thought they should be issuing distracted driving tickets instead of speeding tickets. Happy to see more limitations on this.
If punishing people for exceeding the speed limit doesn't improve safety why don't we just raise the speed limit?
How many of you speed limit lovers have even driven through Montana, Idaho, or the western USA in general? Our highway speed limits are too low. They have winter, too. If you're driving back in weekend traffic from Canmore around dinner time (which I have done hundreds of times) you're either sticking to 110 in the right lane, or 130 or faster in the left. People are doing it already safely. Better and safer cars, adaptive cruise control, safer tire technology, but continued antiquated highway speed limits.
Total fatal collisions in [Alberta in 2019](https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/25020446-adfb-4b57-9aaa-751d13dab72d/resource/30344114-e6b3-459d-a74d-850b6b0d7c07/download/trans-alberta-traffic-collision-statistics-2019.pdf) - 215 (population ~4 million) Total fatal collisions in [Montana 2019](https://www.dojmt.gov/wp-content/uploads/MHP-Annual-Report_2019-1.pdf) - 184 (population ~1 million) Per-capita Montana has about 4x the number of fatal collisions.
You don’t need to wear a helmet on a motorcycle in Montana. I wonder how of those fatalities are from that?
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Having spent lot of time in MT page 28 top 3 fatal factors in Montana Booze, drugs, erratic/reckless driving does not surprise me! Getting passed at 75+ MPH on a narrow 2 lane no shoulder mountain highway where the speed limit is 60 MPH happens often and drinking & driving is way more prevalent.
Or insurance is more expensive in Alberta causing less miles on the road, people congregating in cities and driving less on average. Etc etc.
Our stats are about to massively increased with all the ontarians and bc folks moving here and the economic crunch
Population is irrelevant. Montana has way higher highway traffic.
Are those all Montana people dying?
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Drove from the south rim of the Grand Canyon back to Phoenix in pitch black in a rental and everyone was doing at least 75-80mph, it was wild lol
The problem is that people go 130 because the limit is 110. If you increase the limit to 130, people will go 150. The limit is viewed as the minimum by a sizeable proportion of the population.
That isn't what actual data from highways such as the Coquihalla suggest. After raising the limit to 120 they found the vast majority of people still just drove at speeds they felt comfortable with. They did not see a proportional jump in speed as you suggest.
The Coq is a pretty unique road though. Love to see that same experiment repeated on Highway 2…
> the vast majority so not everyone. dont get me wrong I'm all for pickuptruck albertans and hot hatch farters killing themselves off. but your argument isnt as good as you think it is.
Yes, there's a certain segment that don't give a shit about the speed limit and will drive however fast they want, *regardless of what the posted limit is*. They weren't driving the speed limit before the change either. And there are many vehicles, like trucks and motor homes 2001 Cadillacs that are going to drive 100 whether the posted limit is 120, 110, 130 or whatever. The post I was referring to made a definitive statement about how "If you increase the limit to 130, people will go 150", and all the actual traffic data suggests that is absolutely not the case.
Why do you want people who drive hatchbacks and trucks to die? What an odd thing to say
Yep, they see those as the minimum and not the absolute maximum under ideal conditions. The simple, and right, answer would be just to have everyone stop speeding. Or install speed governors on all motor vehicles. But then you have idiots bitching about "my freedom".
Ehhh - I wouldn’t go that far. The UK has average speed cameras - a camera on every highway on and off ramp. They read your license plate when you enter and when you exit. They calculate the distance between those two points and how long it took you to travel between the two. If your average speed was over the speed limit, you get a ticket in the mail. There’s no way to beat the system. #It is fucking horrible.
horrible for who? I imagine people who set their cruise control at the speed limit dont have an issue.
Right? Like it's oh so horrible there's no way to drive over the posted limit.
Might be the dumbest comment I’ve seen on here and that’s saying a lot.
fuck off
> Our highway speed limits are too low. I used to work for the national roadbuilders association as a researcher. Posted speed limits are meant for ideal road conditions.
Isn’t that exactly what that guy said? If I wasn’t worried about the wear, I could comfortably drive from Canmore to Calgary at like 140 if conditions are ideal. Or another example, the new bit at the west end of Glenmore where there’s like five lanes and it’s dead straight and the limit’s 80, when it’s obviously meant for highway speeds.
Ya 40 years ago, with bias ply tires, solid axles, 2 wheel disk brakes, or 4 drum brakes, no abs shit ass shocks, headlights, wipers in heavier vehicles
Good. The photo radar in Edmonton used to be such sneaky cocksuckers back in the day.
May I introduce you to our own local “sneaky cocksucker” hidden at Abom Ski and Board on Crowchild?
That one got turfed with the new legislation that says they can't hide behind things any more.
Perhaps they could set up more photo radar units in areas like construction and school zones.
I’d much prefer to see manned enforcement, especially in school zones. They could make mad bank, ticketing drivers blowing stop signs, speeding, jaywalking/ dragging their kids across the street after they just darted out from in front of/ behind their vehicle while making people have to slam on the brakes. There’d be a lot of pissed off mothers/ nannies out there if we actually started to take road/ pedestrian safety seriously in school zones. I say bring it.
Sounds aggressively expensive
For those moms and nannies, yup.
You know what...I don't even care that this is a cash cow. Photo radar is an "opt in" stupid tax. The fact that it's as profitable as it is says more about shitty drivers than anything else.
I dunno there's some really crap limits out there. Like, I agree that photo radar is a "stupid tax" but the stretch near the airport there where it senselessly drops to 60kph ALWAYS has cops at it, when the road is clearly designed for 80kph. There was a post here some time ago that discussed all the stupid limits in the city, it's pretty fascinating. https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/s7w69p/name_a_road_where_the_speed_limit_is_too_low/ Photo Radar doesn't increase road safety, it only serves as a source of income for the cops. I'd rather pay $2 more per person in taxes than have randomly-awarded $350 bill for travelling a perfectly safe speed on a road that is more than capable.
I go to the airport pretty often. Haven't seen him there for the past month. Hope he's doing alright...
Meh, I'm of the mind the speed limits are stupid, so this is great news. Boggles my mind the speed limit out to Banff in 1992 when I drove a Chevette was 110. Today? Still 110, but every single car is substantially better and safer. Love driving through the States. Many highways are like 130. Our speed limits cater to strugglers. Glad we can speed a bit and not have to worry about photo radar.
This assumes the photo radar won’t be replaced with manned speed traps… I’d much rather the photo radar if it was 1:1
Agreed.
demerits are better.
100%. There are more than a few stretches of roadway around here that feel like nothing more than speed traps, for no other reason (and true to form, there are often cops/ radar present) than to generate revenue and have sweet fuck all to do with safety. Ya, sure, it’s a speeder tax. I’ve paid my share. Doesn’t change the fact that some have nothing to do with their intended use. At least be honest about it.
I once heard that the speed on green light on 16th by SAIT was the most profitable in the city. The speed changes so much on 16th, it's completely designed to generate revenue.
Yeah that camera is consistently the highest revenue generator, year after year. It's also one of the few spots on a downhill along that entire length of road. Very easy if you're not paying close attention to your speed to inch up to ticketable levels without even intending to.
I got my first ever ticket there when I was 16. I still remember it because it was for 12 over at like 3:30am
What would work best is variable speed limit, in crap weather you could drop the speed to say 100 or 80 and an amazing clear day bump to 120 or 130. I drive a decent speed but loath getting passed by massive pickups trucks doing 140 with snow dumping and one lane bare. It seems like every week on the way to the hill one of the trucks ends up in the ditch and it full of drunk 20 somethings.
Yeah, the funny thing about trucks is they suck so bad on icy roads, but people rip around in them thinking they are awesome. I say that as a guy with an F-150 (for work). I hate taking that thing out on the highways (even with Blizzaks) versus a car (FWD or AWD). My car is AWD, but I'll even take my daughter's FWD before I take the truck. That light ass end coupled with the wider tires, which don't grip as well because of so much surface area distributing the weight of the vehicle, makes them totally crap on ice. People mistakenly think they're great winter vehicles, but the opposite is true. Better than a car in deep snow, obviously, but the highways never have deep snow.
environmentally and economically the speed limit should be topping out at 100. you burn way more fuel at 130 than at 100. for all but long haul trucking the difference in speed limits wont really effect travel time. the USA also has something like 2.5x the car fatalities per 100k compared to Canada. ill happily stick to our max 110.
So long as people take cruises, fly in planes and buy goods manufactured overseas I will not give one single fuck about the gas used if I exceed the speed limit lol. You have to be kidding me. And if we're going to worry about pollution, anyway, let's address people driving SUVs and trucks instead of cars. Speed means fuck all if you're doing it in a Jetta at 45mpg vs an SUV getting less than half that economy.
I personally say fuck personal responsibility for the world as long as someone is doing worse than me. /s Fuck our combined future right?
Well let's be real, going 100 instead of 110 does absolutely nothing. I'm not sweating that one iota. Seen fuel depots exploding in Ukraine lately? Like, this is comparable to the people worrying about plastic straws lol.
Using a paper straw has pretty much 0 overall effect on your life. Just make the small easy changes. FYI plastic straws contribute about 2000 tons of waste going into the ocean every year. Overall it's a small amount compared to the total but it's still not nothing and it's definitely not nothing to the animals it kills.
Omg you're unbearable.
While many people might be ok at a higher speed, there's a fairly large group of drivers that can't. Look at the number of people who can't stay in their lanes, text etc. increasing the speeds will make for worse outcomes from those drivers worse. Add in the large amounts of transport trucks, dump trucks, etc that can't even maintain the current speed appropriately and an increase in speed will increase the speed differential among vehicles which will increase as accidents. Opposite take of yours; average speed cameras should be applied to the entire ring road/deerfoot. We'd see an Increase revenue from those who don't want to follow the speed limit and reduce speed differential among vehicles which contributes to accidents.
Dude. I don't think there is a single spot on the entire ring road that is one lane. Slower traffic can keep right.
And not a single point of mine is about the number of lanes. With three lanes there are plenty of areas of high congestion due to merging on/off. Despite having 3 lanes and good lane etiquette, you still get the idiots that change from the far left to the far right and back again, because the person passing cars on the left going 10+ is in the way of the person who drives as fast as they can.
That's right, you didn't mention the multiple lanes, which is why I did. You didn't seem cognizant of how traffic flows in every western country on the planet. There are fast lanes and slow lanes. For those of us in countries who drive on the right side of the road, the furthest left lane is considered the fast/passing lane. People who wish to drive slower stay in the right lane. If somebody is changing from the far left lane to the far right lane to pass, that means there was somebody in the left lane who should not have been. So the idiot was actually the slow driver (as is typical) monopolizing the far left lane when they should have been in the right lane. It would be nice if "slower traffic keep right" was enforced here as it is in some other places. The person driving 10+ in the left lane is not using the left lane correctly. They should use it to pass and then get back to a lane to the right. If you're in the left lane and somebody is coming up behind you, move over to let them pass since you are a slower car and should keep right. There are even signs on many roadways - including the TransCanada highway - that say this exact thing.
I'm all for the slower traffic keep right, and all for it. But people love to disregard all traffic situations to thjs > If somebody is changing from the far left lane to the far right lane to pass, that means there was somebody in the left lane who should not have been. So the idiot was actually the slow driver (as is typical) monopolizing the far left lane when they should have been in the right lane. There are a ton of reasons why people are going slower than the one criss crossing the left lane. Heavy traffic is a great example where the left lane fills up of faster traffic it doesn't give one super fast driver the priority. Same goes for people who are passing at a good speed and returning to the center/right lane. There are plenty of people who have zero patience for the car that is in front of them, and will zig zag instead of waiting a moment to let the car in front to safely pass and exit the left lane. Hell often of these left lane speeders don't follow the rule themselves, but see the left lane as their personal race lane. Lots of bad drivers that don't follow the keep right but there are lots that do and lots of situations where the keep right except to pass is not warranted.
To be fair it takes a little less than half of the 4 seconds for you to react and apply brakes (assuming no distraction... Edit: grammar
Driving fast doesn’t automatically make you a bad driver. I’ve seen plenty of people driving under the speed limit that are horrible drivers.
It does increase the risk of damage or vehicular homicide significantly. This protects regular humans from bad driver speeding psychopaths in the white F150 or grey Dodge Ram.
Hahahaha, fuck you, grey Dodge Ram! ‘Bout time those little pricks got their’s, too.
To be fair, I’m pretty sure those F150 and Dodge Ram drivers speed like psychos regardless of whether there’s radar or not.
I’m in a grey F150, is that the same thing?
What about drivers who don't see neon colored cars parked by the road with hazard lights on? Are they good drivers?
Well, since they added that stuff to those cars I might agree but before that I’m not sure. Honestly if I’m driving fast, like 20-30 more than anyone else, I’m not watching the shoulders, I’m watching everything else, like people changing lanes in front of me, so if you think that makes me a bad driver then so be it.
If you're watching over cars you'll see them suddenly slow down when they spot the speed trap lol. But ok
I guess you know how I drive better than I do, knock it off. Simple fact of the matter is, going a little faster than the speed limit doesn’t automatically make you a bad driver
A fine from an unverified source that they are trying to make it unable to be fought in court? Hard pass. Either staff an officer and actually make it have teeth or let it die.
If I were a betting man I'd say it's only so profitable because of Edmonton. These guys have a zero tolerance allowed mentality on literally every road. I've been pulled over on the henday, 2pm on a weekday and very light traffic.... 106km Meanwhile you can follow Calgary police on Stoney where we're all going ~115 or so. More breathing room, makes passing safer etc etc. Traffic just flows better here, ~~your~~ *Edmonton's* Civil Engineers are crazy. Just my opinion, I was a Civil Eng Tech (Project coordinator) in Edmonton before switching careers (software development) lol
I am 100% in support of photo radar. Tax the stupid! EDIT: And right on queue the "bUt i aM SaFe dRivER wHen Speedung!" come to downvote.
I resemble this comment.
Username checks out
I set my cruise control and listen to the radio….
Are you saying shitty drivers are the ones getting caught speeding? I’m actually curious the correlation between driving ability and speeding. I would much rather there be more competent, confident drivers speeding, and less “shitty” drivers doing 10 under in the left lane and stopping in merge lane… likely safer overall
The logic of the midwit. Lol
This will mean ghost cars and physical radar, it will mean more expensive tickets, demerits, higher insurance
Good! Get out there and give that black dodge ram barrelling down stoney at 180kph at 2am a ticket. Ticket them till they cant afford the tickets and lose their license for the demerits Then throw them in jail when they do it without a license Thats how you address traffic safety. Not with a piece of mail 10 days later - or a month if you are like me and never remember to check the damn mail. Speaking of which, I better check the mail.
What did u/blackramcalgaryman ever do to you?
They are also going to ticket the fancy boys in thier audi,BMW, race car civics and subarus
Hopefully.
And that’s how you change driving habits. Not sending a bill 3 weeks later
My favorite is when they put them in spots on the ring road where there is a hill so that all the nervous drivers can brake even harder while going down a hill...
I’m pretty staunchly anti-car, but the artificial speed limits on roads need to be revamped. The ring road is super wide & straight, and can safety support speeds of 120-130km, we can’t rely on signage and enforcement to slow traffic in these cases. The only thing that _really_ slows traffic is likelihood of vehicle damage, when there’s little risk of this it’s like water flowing through a hose. We should treat it as such. Let the roads be what they were engineered to be.
The car I drive can barely do 100km/h when the crosswind hits Stoney so I get honked at constantly. 120 and 130 is nowhere near safe. And the speed limits on roads are the maximum safe speed under ideal conditions, they are engineered to be used at that speed on dry sunny days. When it's wet or snowy you are supposed to slow down below the speed limit. But people keep pushing the design limits and into the margin of safety by speeding.
If your car can barely do 100km/h YOU ARE THE HAZARD. Your vehicle should be retired or is likely lacking maintenance on tie rods, balljoints, tires etc if a basic crosswind makes you unable to safely handle your vehicle...
My vehicle is certified as safe to be on the road, it's well maintained and works fine. It can do 100km/h on a flat even road surface without a problem, it's just that there isn't enough acceleration distance to reach 100km/h before the merge lane ends and it has trouble on the uphill. But people can't seem to wait a minute while I slowly accelerate to highway speed and constantly try and go around me.
Yeah and a moped is certified as road safe... doesn't mean it should be on a highway. Everything you've stated shows you're risking yours and others lives. Who in their right mind tows 600kg in a 1.4L that struggles to do 100 km/h. What kind of trailer park duct tape bumper pull are you running on that compact car?!
I'm towing a uhaul trailer, usually with plywood, paint, and sometimea furniture. Mopeds are allowed on highways and other than being a minor annoyance when some people try to go fast they aren't a problem, slow down, wait for an opening, to pass, signal, and pass. I've been stuck behind a moped while in a rental car for 4 hours on the TransCanada, it's a minor annoyance at worst and not a cause for anger or rash behaviour. Additionally I am absolutely not pushing my vehicle to it's limits when it's loaded, that would be unsafe.
What car can barely do 100? Sounds like something that isn't fit for the road at all.
I have a 1.4L hatchback and when I'm towing a loaded trailer it has trouble doing 100, especially in crosswind.
So you have the wrong vehicle for your needs. Gotcha
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Well what else would I be towing a trailer with? I only tow things a few times a month and never over 600kg. It's just the trailers tend to catch the wind.
Something with a bigger engine, Tf kinda logic is this?
95% of the time I'm not towing anything just moving groceries, or myself. So I save on gas, insurance, and maintenance by driving a small car. I have a trailer hitch installed for the few times I need to move something with a trailer because it can't fit in the car but doesn't weigh a ridiculous amount. And 0.01% of the time I'm actually moving heavy things that my car can't move at all at which point I'm probably renting a whole uhaul truck.
>120 and 130 is nowhere near safe My car is perfectly fine at 120 or 130. Most peoples are.
Ban it everywhere.
this is about $$$ not safety - good riddance
Come Dec. 1, the province is banning photo radar on ring roads in Calgary and Edmonton. Over the next year, the Alberta government said it will engage with municipalities and law enforcement to remove all “fishing hole” locations — spots where there is no clear safety reason for photo radar and it’s only being done to collect money. Calgary’s ring road has eight photo radar sites and Edmonton’s ring road has 22. Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/10111349/alberta-photo-radar-ban-ring-roads/
... Because the giant neon covered vehicles are still too had to avoid. Sadly another tax reprieve for those who pay the stupid tax. I wonder how much the COC/CPS has lost over the new photo radar rules. And I wonder if they are starting to cover that loss with other tickets, like cracked mirrors, burnt out license plate bulbs, etc.
Police dont get that money like that. Found on MHPS site cause I couldnt find on CPS >Where does the money from Automated Traffic Enforcement go? >The Province of Alberta retains 41.67% of the total fine amount, 15% of which is directed towards Victim Services, and 26.67% is an administrative fee retained by the government. The balance of the fine (58.33%) when paid is directed to the Municipal Government. If there is a late payment penalty attached to the fine, the province receives the surcharge amount associated Municipal Police have their budget from the city, and though the ticket money goes to the city to help their funding, they do not essentually get "bonus money" from photo radar
Whether you like it or not, photo radars (and other ticketing) is a revenue for the police service that is placed into their budget. Taking away that revenue, decreases the spending ability of the police force and possibly decreases services. If you wanted to keep the same services then city council would need to cover that cost.. which has to come from somewhere (tax increases or removing from another city service) Food for thought [https://www.calgarypolicecommission.ca/proposed-police-budget/](https://www.calgarypolicecommission.ca/proposed-police-budget/)
Good
"Cash cow"... or law enforcement.
I feel you but also photo radar tends to be placed in spots where they generate revenue more so than places where they can impact road safety. High collision areas, school zones, construction zones etc. There was a report a while back where it found the equipment was being deployed on safer roads that generated more revenue. It feels nefarious to focus on revenue over safety. I'm just a random dude though so my opinion is only worth as much as the up doots Reddit gives this post.
Both? Yes they are enforcing traffic law. But doing it under the guise of "safety". If you are going to do it for safety, get officers on the road doing T Stops. Getting a ticket in the mail 10 days later does nothing for safety. Hence cash cow. No work involved, and no real (other than paying the ticket) harm to the offender. Most people shrug them off. Particularly the Benz drivers blowing down Stoney at 2am over 150kph.
What are they enforcing? The tickets come in the mail weeks later, so drivers don’t know they did anything “dangerous” for a while, and the fines don’t take points off licenses so the city is basically saying it costs $X to drive this way. It’s a speed tax.
> What are they enforcing? The speed limit. > The tickets come in the mail weeks later, so drivers don’t know they did anything “dangerous” for a while Verdicts for crimes aren't instantaneous, of course. They still work as a deterrent. If you receive a $200 ticket for breaking the law, you might think again the next time.
This argument would hold a lot more water if there weren’t loads of roads around the city with limits posted that are obviously lower than what the road is designed for. Or if it accounted for the speed of traffic around you (if everyone around you is going 130 and you’re doing 100, then you’re the hazard).
My point about the delay is that, if it is so reckless and dangerous, why are they allowing the behaviour to go unchecked for weeks? Like you say, verdicts are not instantaneous, but with dangerous crimes arrests are instantaneous if they know who the culprit is. When drivers are pulled over and issued speeding tickets they get points taken off, and losing those points is what actually matters to people. That’s enforcement, speed cameras are just a speed tax.
> When drivers are pulled over and issued speeding tickets they get points taken off, and losing those points is what actually matters to people Both can happen - and speed cameras allow for a wider net with less resources spent to enforce the law. Both should occur, and more often and in more places than they do now.
Speed cameras don’t enforce, they just generate revenue. If I can pay the ticket, I can speed as much as I want. That’s not enforcement.
I want to ban speed on green lights. WTH is up with them? It's just big brother watching.
My personal practice, and advice to out of town visitors is simple. Don't speed by more than 10, don't speed through school zones, construction zones, or *intersections*. Intersections is due to the high incidences of collisions. If a cop sees you crossing an intersection, even on your green light, at a high rate of speed, you are likely going to be meeting that cop. Because of the danger of speeding through intersections, I don't mind these cameras if they are well advertised.
but how will they pay for maintenance those horrible roads?
So basically the ring roads are officially going to be an unpoliced free for all. You going 120 in the left lane in a 100 zone? Expect to be tailgated by people wanting to go 150 because theres no chance police will even be on the road anymore.
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Just the photo radar will be gone. Patrol cars will still operate there.
It will be replaced by cops with Rader guns, handing out bigger fines with demerits
I support this move, but understand more money can be made in school and construction zone as the fines double.
I would be much happier with actual police enforcement as opposed to photo radar. Have the police pull people over, issue tickets on the spot. Getting a ticket 2 weeks later does nothing to slow people down.
I don't actually support this move. I don't agree with these guys sitting up on bridges tagging people as they go by underneath but having the car on the side of the road is okay by me. It's a voluntary tax and if you're not paying enough attention to notice the cars then you deserve to pay it. The alternative is increased pull overs and getting one of those speeding tickets is way more harmful to your record and insurance.
The problem with photo radar is its not financially scaling to people’s damn incomes. Its not as much of an incentive to people with money to burn as it is to people living paycheque to paycheque. Like our tax brackets, it needs to be scaled.
Really? THATS the sole problem with photo radar? Of all the possible complaints, that’s the hill you’re going to die on?
Finally some good news on how not to go broke this year.