With an average of 38 busts a day and a total of over 1060 our streets should be much safer. Obviously it isn’t. Even he was surprised by the numbers. I’m not but I’m still wondering where the outrage is.
I want to write this down so I don’t forget.
First is if police are busting 38 people a day and charging them with this law, what were they doing before? Think about it. In Ontario we’ve always had laws dealing with people going 50 over. So I raise the following question: At what rate did the police issue ticket for going 50 over before this seizure law was put into effect?
I was hoping for an easy answer to this question. I hoped to find the answer at the MTO Site. I thought the Ontario Road Safety Annual Report was a good place to start. While the stats are useful, they are not broken down enough to answer my question. According to the 2003 report under the Conviction, Offence, and Suspension Data, 716,120 people were charged with speeding. To my dismay that number is not broken down any further then that. How many were 10 over or 25 over or 50 over. With out that data, it is impossible to see if what Ontario is doing is having any effect. I’ve found a Freedom of Information form online so I will request the data. I’ve never done this before so I’ll write back and let you know how it goes.
Here is what I expect to find. Enforcement of this new law will be up. Fantino expressed surprise when looking at this months numbers. That leads me to believe that they were not actively looking for speeders before. At least not with the zeal they are doing now. Think about it for a sec. Now the government can say “Yeah our road ways are dangerous because look at all the cars we impounded.” Of course when you step up enforcement you will always find what you are looking for. Further more when you really look at it closely you realize that now the police have every incentive to pull you over and charge you with this law if they can. First the fine you pay goes to their budget. Second is the money received trough towing and storage. And because suspension and seizure are done on the spot without right of appeal, they will always find it worth while to use this law. That source of income pretty much mandates enforcement of this law and is a recipe for abuse of power.
