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I'm almost inclined to write a letter to the editor in response to this editorial (No to photo radar) in the G&M. But, finding a link to an electronic submission OR the email address is too much trouble. [This is probably why they don't put the email response link right at the bottom of the editorial/column/article: it might make it too easy for the reader to engage with the newspapers quasi-intellectuals. Dear Lord! No! Engagement with the citizenry the paper serves? Oh yeah, the paper serves the advertisers . . .]
Anyway, further to a tirade I posted here yesterday, the newspaper's pandering position to those who rallied behind the "common sense revolution," stating that repealing the photo radar of the NDP government was one of the most popular things that Harris did, is bunk.
Since when was public safety and sensibility a matter of popularity. That's the domain of politics -- a least in the minds of those of us who are jaded by the political process -- although even there it shouldn't be.
Photo radar isn't a "bad idea" on highways or otherwise, as the editorialist suggests, EXCEPT for political reasons. Harris cancelled photo radar as a political move because of the many tickets being issued -- likely to the 905-belt, luxury car driving core of his constituency -- were being tagged with speeding tickets. BECAUSE THEY WERE BREAKING THE LAW. [Hard for a "law and order" right-wing government to stand for that in-your-face flouting of the law when it's so black and white. Best to remove the evidence.] In that circumstance the "Orwellian echoes" and loathing of the photo radar are gibberish coming from an mind lacking any kind of rigour or independence.
In practice, the system is perfectly sensible. We are plagued here in Ontario by an geometrically increasing population of self-indulgent, obnoxious, poorly-trained, distracted, lead-footed drivers in vehicles that beg to be driven well beyond the speed limit determined (by the government) to be safe. Do something about it. Photo radar -- the threat or actual practice of hitting the wallet of those breaking the law -- does that.
But again, as I said before, it doesn't have to be a purely economic penalty if the optics of that are too hard to take. Use some imagination.
Or, just raise the speed limit and accept the increasing carnage. Whatever. Just stop writing stupid editorials with tenuous arguments that rest on irrelevant premises.
Posted by Grayson at August 25, 2004 07:39 AM