Photo Radar coming to Toronto?
- Thread starter GameBoy27
- Start date
Not only is it a tax grab, it's a way of eroding or dumbing down of services. They can contact out the service now, like tolls, to a non public entity to administer. It's the Walmarting of jobs, as we have a bloated public service and a dwindling of private sector jobs and they are looking for ways to shave the jobs that are already there and make money in the process. Once this has begun, I'm sure every municipality will follow suit and you'll see photo radar all over the place.
am I missing something here?
due process, and the presumption of innocence? anyone could be driving the vehicle at the time of the incident, so how can they subject a fine to someone who may or may not be the driver at the time? even with the current red light camera, unless they have a perfect shot of the driver in the seat then what proof do they have?
due process, and the presumption of innocence? anyone could be driving the vehicle at the time of the incident, so how can they subject a fine to someone who may or may not be the driver at the time? even with the current red light camera, unless they have a perfect shot of the driver in the seat then what proof do they have?
Yeah OPP can be lenient...take away that and as was mentioned...the flood gates will open..... on the 401 between Meadowvale and 409..from 11AM to about 2:30pm photo radar will be akin to shooting fish in a barrel....and lets not forget 11M to about 3:30AM...during the summer with all the 1200CC crotch rockets doin about 170-180KPH..on an empty highway.
Where is the money gonna go...OPP?..City of torontos coffers?...AG office?
you'll have dept..fighting amongst themselves tryin to get their piece of the pie...
Yeah, tickets will spew out for even minor violations it seems. No grace perhaps.
They're going to change the laws to accommodate the technological enforcement, but you have a point.
Can someone challenge the law(s)?
Do you know how many plates I see where the paint has faded or peeled completely off, or for which are dirty, or covered by plastic covers? If I was a cop, I'd NAIL these guys. But seems like enforcement is non-existent. I might even be inclined to report some next time, if I knew there was a snitch line.
The law was changed in the case of red light cameras where the ticket is issued to the owner of the vehicle. They will have to do the same thing to bring in photo radar.
As for Tory's concern for the "safety of pedestrians and children", how does speeding through a school zone and receiving what amounts to a small fine make the area safer. You aren't pulled over and made to wait while the officer writes the ticket and/or gives you a lecture on the dangers of speeding. You don't receive demerit points if you're travelling more than 15 km/h over and it doesn't get registered on your insurance as a moving violation so your rates won't go up.
For the most part, cops don't setup radar in school zones or residential streets because the majority of people don't speed in those areas which makes it difficult to meet their quotas. That's why you'll see them in the same fishing holes, day in day out. The one exception is they'll setup in school zones on weekends with no kids around. Go figure.
I have a couple friends who work for Traffic Services. Both are on the sunshine list making 115-120K a year with overtime. They say nailing speeders is the easiest job in the world, as long as you're in the right location. They tell me residential and school zones are not good locations as most obey the limit or are only going 10 over.
They prefer spots where people regularly travel 15 over. They tell those drivers to show up in court and he'll knock it down so there's no points. Meanwhile, the more people who go to court, the more the cops make as they'll book court on days off and get paid time and a half.
When you work for traffic services, you can go anywhere in the city to set up radar. They'll drive to a good location, sit in the car and decide how many tickets they wants to write. They'll fill out 20 or 30 tickets with their name, badge number, date, location, direction, HTA number and sign them. Then it' like shooting fish in a barrel. All that's left is to fill out the driver's info, speed and fine. They don't even bother asking for insurance because they're not supposed to let them drive away which means you have to impound the vehicle. That takes way to much time for one ticket.
If pedestrians and children are being run over in residential areas/school zones then that's where the focus should be, but it's not. It's all a big game in the name of safety.
http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/the_fixer/2013/04/24/readers_point_out_plenty_of_speed_trap_fishing_holes_the_fixer.html
If they REALLY want to make roads safer, it's quite simple.
Pick an area of town.. put a cop in a cruiser, have him drive the streets all day and stop every violator he finds.
If I were a cop, I could nail a TON of people just by driving up and down Yonge street all day. Illegal left turns, cabs making U-turns and cutting off people, cyclists, jaywalking, etc, etc. They could nail as many people as they have time for. Guaranteed they wouldn't have to drive more than 5-7 mins before they would need to pull someone over.
I sit on Yonge every morning and watch at least one person per intersection do something illegal in front of me. Left turns, texting at the red light, change lanes without signalling, cut someone off (car or pedestrian), people jaywalking in dangerous spots with cars coming at high speed, etc, etc.
But photo radar is dropped into place at little/no cost to the cops, and they get a giant cheque mailed to them. Why wouldn't they want it?
Pick an area of town.. put a cop in a cruiser, have him drive the streets all day and stop every violator he finds.
If I were a cop, I could nail a TON of people just by driving up and down Yonge street all day. Illegal left turns, cabs making U-turns and cutting off people, cyclists, jaywalking, etc, etc. They could nail as many people as they have time for. Guaranteed they wouldn't have to drive more than 5-7 mins before they would need to pull someone over.
I sit on Yonge every morning and watch at least one person per intersection do something illegal in front of me. Left turns, texting at the red light, change lanes without signalling, cut someone off (car or pedestrian), people jaywalking in dangerous spots with cars coming at high speed, etc, etc.
But photo radar is dropped into place at little/no cost to the cops, and they get a giant cheque mailed to them. Why wouldn't they want it?
so essentially the crown no longer has the burden of proving guilt with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. just because a vehicle that is registered to a person means they are guilty?
Yep... The registered owner is guilty, regardless of who was driving. Repeat "it will make the streets safer" to yourself, over and over until you're brainwashed like all of our politicians.
looks like its another good reason for me to move out of the city and off grid. Im am so tired of the government working against me instead of for me.
On this topic they're working for me and many other citizens who have no interest in speeding. So long, farewell, goodbye.
Maybe by the time you come back for a visit — at legal speeds of course — we'll have the car registration fee back, so without the tax-paid sticker on your windshield you'll have to pay extra to park.
Ah! But only the hated 407 corp has any real stake in legible plates. Photo radar and toll-lanes will move the government into their camp (and they're hated already). All it would take would be a few words in the parking officers' regulations to prod a whole lot of folks into compliance. Wouldn't hurt to abandon plate-to-owner and go back to plate-to-vehicle as well, my twentysomething plates could sure use some new paint.
Much the same as fining a company for unsafely operating trucks and not letting them off because their rules said the drivers were responsible for vehicle safety. The ticket is issued to the registered owner. If they have allowed someone else to drive, they'll have to collect from that irresponsible person (and they'll know something about their driving they perhaps didn't know). In a court, the owner would have to show the identification of their vehicle was uncertain to avoid conviction.
We have far too many government services and far too many government workers. There simply isn't enough money to pay for it all.
I was not a fan of Ford because he was a fuck-up, but he was correct, the city of Toronto does not have a revenue problem, the City of Toronto has a spending problem. There's simply too much government.
We are taxed at about 50% of what we earn when all is said and done. How much do you figure we should be taxed at? 55%? 60%? Where does it end? As Margaret Thatcher once so aptly put it, "the problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money"
My thinking is really simple. Maintain tax rates where they are already. If our income rises as a nation / province / city, your tax revenues will also rise since it's all a percentage of income / spending / property values. The 3 levels of government simply need to learn to live within their means. If you can't afford it, you need to do without it. The answer to government pigdom is not higher taxes.
Just wait. A budget is coming, later today. And a federal one soon as well. Talk about some serious dp action.
If Torionto has too much government, why don't you try naming the bits we can amputate and do without. Ford couldn't. Fuckup he was, but he had Holyday and others who were trying as hard as they could. And they failed. All they did was dig us deeper into the hole Rob dug by dumping the car tax. If it wasn't for land registry we'd be broke.
I'm tired of folks complaining about too much expensive government but imagining no more than nickle and dime raids on the coffee fund and postponing promised payments and needed hires like Ford and Harper. Name a few whole services our City should do without.
Flint tried it by switching to cheaper water.
Oh and the trouble with Thatcher: We all think we're spending other people's endless money. No one ever prices their own wishlist. Proof: Ford's Pet Scarborough Subway.
1. Eliminate the Fair Wage Office that mandates that the City of Toronto must use Unionized contractors for all capital projects. That alone would save 20 percent on all construction projects.
2. Layoff 10% of staff across the board, including cops and fire fighters. There's simply too many City of Toronto workers.
3. Contract out all garbage collection services.
4. Contract out all office cleaning services
5. Contract out bus driving services
6. Sell off all "co-op" housing. (No not housing for the abject poor, but the Jack Layton type co-op apartments that the City owns and operates and people pay token rent on.)
7. Start taking a hard look at all the special interest groups who get City of Toronto hand-outs.
8. Take a hard look at this list - there are a pile of jobs on there that you read and you go, "what the hell is that job?"
Ford and Holyday couldn't do it because the vast majority of our councilors are leftists, even communists. They all believe that government is good, and private enterprise is bad, so tax the shit out of everyone. At the end of the day, Ford and Holyday are just one vote. Until the City of Toronto has a very real financial crisis - and it's coming, the easy answer is to increase taxes again and again and again.
And how is that crisis coming you ask? Very simple mon ami. The City of Toronto is addicted to development fees. All those nice shiny new condo - developers pay big bucks to the city of Toronto. When that dries up, and it will soon, the City is going to be in a whole shit load of trouble.
Thanks for your list. I notice most of those cuts seemed to fall everywhere but on the greedy service-users who imagine they can have it all as long as it comes out of someone else's pocket or pay packet. That's Margaret thatcher's other people's money for sure, and the Flint/Detroit story in a nutshell, "As long as someone else'll do it cheaper, and we don't suffer, what do I care?". And as you close the moving van and leave the neighbourhood that used to be so nice and prosperous, you can cluck cluck about those jobless who always want something for nothing and are coming to steal that new copper waterline. Going cheap is no way to build good. Suppose I suggested low-rent Chinese engineer's stamps on city projects and building permits would be just as reliable as yours?
Many departments are already well understaffed, thanks to a fuckup Mayor doing exactly your thing already. Which is why you can't get anyone to respond to your issue, and why they can't get anyone to actually fix it. But it does go on a list. That has to be filed. That someone eventually has to be hired to look at. That someone will have to call you about, because the info's now too old to be acted on. And your problem's worse. Or never really needed your first request for service. "Hasn't that trash/pylon/hole/dead raccoon/construction debris/broken fence always been there?"
I'll look at no.8, but no.7, well everyone thinks all the other interest groups are undeserving, so you'll never get useful support for that one. You must have a list of such places for 6, otherwise file it with 7. Let's not rehash the lies and half-truths about the Laytons' so-called cushy deal. But in general, the consensus is a that buildings with a mix of rent levels from low and subsidized on up are the best bet for the individuals and the community. The new Regent Park is structured that way. So no savings there. Except maybe when it's cheaper to demolish than to fix the old stock we were too stingy to keep in repair. Too stuingy before, as provincial taxpayers and too stingy after Harris 'gave' it to us rich Toronto taxpayers. Other people's money was his favourite kind too.
We can go around these details forever, but we elect people to do that because we're busy. The bottom line is that from as far back as there have been pols they've always promised to cut costs and lower taxes. Maggie was one of them. Show me the regime where they succeeded and the place is generally happy and widely prosperous as a result.
Clearly it's not as easy as they say. So meanwhile, as we wait for the Everything for Nothing Revolution Ford Nation was founded on, I'll go for at least getting as much cash as we can from guys who can't keep their drivers under the posted limit. Bring on Photo-Radar unlike uneeded subways, unrepaired schools and untended parks, it won't make my taxes go up.
And someday I'll reveal my Improved Toronto Car Registration Sticker scheme. Available to all, reduced parking fines and fees if you have one. Stiffer parking fines without. Rolled into the permit parking system, with specially attractive pricing for residents in other areas, who will be required to buy them.
Oops! cat's out!
Sorry, I left out no.1. I'd be all for that if it was replaced by a requirement to file the contract that has been agreed upon by the workers and the contractor, and to make it available to any of those workers on the site and to the public at City Hall. Of course there'd have to be stuff about how complete and detailed such a contract would have to be. But at a minimum it would have to spell out jobs, wage rates, overtime, sick-leave, reporting, calls and notice, as well as working conditions and safety procedures, and promise compliance with all relevant statutes, regulations and codes along with procedures for dispute resolution. There are all sorts of good contracts — mostly union to crib from — and trade groups would soon draft not-so-good ones. Point is, public and in writing with your workers, or no City work for you.
Many departments are already well understaffed, thanks to a fuckup Mayor doing exactly your thing already. Which is why you can't get anyone to respond to your issue, and why they can't get anyone to actually fix it. But it does go on a list. That has to be filed. That someone eventually has to be hired to look at. That someone will have to call you about, because the info's now too old to be acted on. And your problem's worse. Or never really needed your first request for service. "Hasn't that trash/pylon/hole/dead raccoon/construction debris/broken fence always been there?"
I'll look at no.8, but no.7, well everyone thinks all the other interest groups are undeserving, so you'll never get useful support for that one. You must have a list of such places for 6, otherwise file it with 7. Let's not rehash the lies and half-truths about the Laytons' so-called cushy deal. But in general, the consensus is a that buildings with a mix of rent levels from low and subsidized on up are the best bet for the individuals and the community. The new Regent Park is structured that way. So no savings there. Except maybe when it's cheaper to demolish than to fix the old stock we were too stingy to keep in repair. Too stuingy before, as provincial taxpayers and too stingy after Harris 'gave' it to us rich Toronto taxpayers. Other people's money was his favourite kind too.
We can go around these details forever, but we elect people to do that because we're busy. The bottom line is that from as far back as there have been pols they've always promised to cut costs and lower taxes. Maggie was one of them. Show me the regime where they succeeded and the place is generally happy and widely prosperous as a result.
Clearly it's not as easy as they say. So meanwhile, as we wait for the Everything for Nothing Revolution Ford Nation was founded on, I'll go for at least getting as much cash as we can from guys who can't keep their drivers under the posted limit. Bring on Photo-Radar unlike uneeded subways, unrepaired schools and untended parks, it won't make my taxes go up.
And someday I'll reveal my Improved Toronto Car Registration Sticker scheme. Available to all, reduced parking fines and fees if you have one. Stiffer parking fines without. Rolled into the permit parking system, with specially attractive pricing for residents in other areas, who will be required to buy them.
Oops! cat's out!
Sorry, I left out no.1. I'd be all for that if it was replaced by a requirement to file the contract that has been agreed upon by the workers and the contractor, and to make it available to any of those workers on the site and to the public at City Hall. Of course there'd have to be stuff about how complete and detailed such a contract would have to be. But at a minimum it would have to spell out jobs, wage rates, overtime, sick-leave, reporting, calls and notice, as well as working conditions and safety procedures, and promise compliance with all relevant statutes, regulations and codes along with procedures for dispute resolution. There are all sorts of good contracts — mostly union to crib from — and trade groups would soon draft not-so-good ones. Point is, public and in writing with your workers, or no City work for you.
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You asked me for ways to save money and I told you. You just don't like the answers.
Let's look at it a different way.......
Let's compare Chicago and Toronto. Both are approximately the same size cities, large urban centers. Arguable which is a better town. (I'd say Toronto, but my buddy On the Bottom would argue Chicago because it's home to so many fortune 500 companies.)
Toronto Budget = 14.4 billion Canadian dollars
Chicago Budget = 8.7 billion American dollars (which up until a year or so ago had been more or less the same.)
Toronto number of municipal employees = 55,000 (seriously)
Chicago number of municipal employees = 32,000
Simply put, too many workers.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. I don't begrudge them their salaries. You won't ever find me saying that. There's just way too many City of Toronto employees. You could lay off 20 percent of them and your average person would never even notice the difference.
Private sector companies lay off 10% of staff and no-one blinks an eye. If the city were to lay off 10% of staff, Lake Ontario would flood from all the tears.
