Steen Jensen

Peter Cheney tells it like it is...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe...rticle2331019/

Ronan

Well written. No wonder they are so disliked. Still, we have to pay for their exorbitant salaries.

Benny771

Wow,
Amazing how the police don't work for us anymore. It has become "just a buisness".
I think their salaries are justified if they are allowed to do what they were hired to do.

Steen Jensen

This is the problem.

Am I the only one who sees a massive conflict of interest with the police funding their budgets with traffic ticket income.
I heard the chief of police in Calgary on some radio talk show actually bragging that they didn't need to go to the city for more funds because of all the revenue they were raking in from tickets. This city has become a gauntlet of cops with radar , photo radar , speed on green cameras , red light cameras , aircraft flying overhead and unmarked suv's running up and down the Deerfoot. If they really wanted to slow traffic on the Deerfoot , all they have to do is run MARKED cruisers up and down all day. THAT would slow traffic , but oh noooo , that wouldn't result in revenue for their precious budgets.
I wouldn't even mind so much if they would just call it what it is...A REVENUE GENERATING DEVICE.

Makes one think hard on what else they lie to us about.

fanny bay r1

I was stopped twice last year for minor speeding offences in hard to detect areas that i was unfamiliar with - once in Orgeon and once in Washington State. during both encounters the young an very professional deputy checked all my info and one even asked if I and the family were on vacation in their fine state (which we were) they both then proceeded to give me a light warning and caution and sent us on our way - sans ticket.

This would never, never happen at home with the mounties in BC -- did I say never, never!!!

JimV8

To Serve and Collect. Priceless.

porsche0nut

This is a topic that makes
my blood BOIL!

It's pathetic. Utterly ridiculous. Our police system is a joke that preys on hard working citizens rather than real criminals. It's bull****.

Steen Jensen

Me too and apparently we are not alone.

Look at the comments generated by Peter's article. He is a great writer but I have never seen another of his articles generating the volume and passion as this one has.

I think one has to remember , the police are only doing as they are ordered by their superiors. Sure , there are a few who get their kicks from writing tickets but I would bet that most did not get into that line of work to become "tax collectors".

JimV8

Lets not go totally overboard. Cops do get reasonable marks for keeping the place safe. I see stats that are updated weekly and theres' no comparison with other large NA cities. Wages are the largest budget item and that means a cop's time is apportioned to areas that have the greatest need. As far as property crime that's real low on the list. I've been to many police stations giving my chat's about security and learned first hand how they are briefed before going on the road. Stuff involving safety and security of the person is high on the list as are criminal activities in the area. Police departments are compartmentalized and so there are crime prevention officers who aside from visiting schools also look at the B&E reports and actually go door to door in high crime neighbourhoods advising citizens. This happened last year in the York Mills/Bayview area which had a spike in B&E.s and the cops designated it a red zone and stepped up patrols. Same thing is true for the detective inspectors and those are even sub divided into narrower area, such as ****, fraud, robbery, and homicides.
The largest single area is traffic and that takes a large share of the budget and there are several divisions dedicated to that only and of corse the one that gets our attention.

There's one cash grab area that was missed in the discussion though, one that will cost you much more than a traffic ticket as the price on this one is well over a thousand bucks, and that's by the Toronto Fire Department. If your monitored smoke alarm goes off with the trucks dispatched you will be charged $350 per vehicle and it's rare that less than three are sent. If you don't pay it's added to the tax bill. This one really has people steamed.
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2...file-36706.pdf
As far as the crime stats check out your neighbourhood here.
http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/statistics/

Mark Lue

Jim, that's some good info, thanks for sharing.

Too bad it only covers the GTA.

Speedyellow993

Just a thought...

If they just cut their budget by 10%, does that = a 10% increase in tickets?

Targatoo

The trouble is that having an public discussion about this is difficult. It too often gets boiled down like Cheney has done, into 'either/or' arguments. Like, "why should the military have new jets when my aunt can't get a liver transplant". The two are unrelated.

Similarly, arguing that HTA enforcement distracts the police from the work they should be doing kind of a stretch. However, what iss needed is a way to allow trained police officers to to the work they were trained to do. Our society invests a lot in 'creating' a police officer. It's not a very good use of that resource to have him handing out HTA tickets in what should really be a by-law issue; driving straight on Shaw Avenue. There should really be deputized by-law officers to enforce non-safety related HTA offences. Assuming that there's valid reason to not drive straight on Shaw Ave, the law needs to be adequately enforced. Clearly, a sign is doing little to deter the law-breakers. Issuing a ticket is one way to enforce the law. There are others, however.

But leave the enforcement to someone with a grade 10 education. Making officers do this dirty work is a disservice to the uniform. Let municipal politics handle the enforcement of local traffic issues in a public way.

Everybody wants drivers to slow down on their street. No one wants to drive slowly on anybody elses street. So, how should we handle this, at a municipal political level? Let's have the discussion. Issuing tickets is one way. There are other tools. It will take enough people complaining about undue enforcement to get something done. Writing in a forum like this really doesn't acheive much.

How many of you have written to a politician about undue enforcement? I have. Mine is one voice.

Unfortunately, polls show that citizens, on the whole, want more HTA enforcement, not less.

LastMezger

+1.

Easy way around all of it is to simply follow the traffic laws. That way you're guaranteed not to get any tickets or line the Provinces coffers.

Christien

Here's my solution:

100% of all ticket revenues go to charity.

Problem solved. The police will only bother issuing tickets when public safety is at stake, i.e.
doing the job they were trained to do, and that they signed up to do. No longer will they be tax collectors - they actually will have more important things to do. It will mean more tax dollars are required to fund the police forces. Fine. That, theoretically, will be offset by the lesser amounts of money being paid towards tickets. If you told me my property taxes would be going up by $100 next year, and there would be no more stupid revenue-generating tickets written (like my ticket for reading an email at a red light) I would be 100% in support of that.

Xpit77

Ah guy`s.
I live in Kingston.
Recently our boys in Blue did a fine job putting 3 ******** in the joint for 25. You`ve probably heard or read about this case.
They just don`t write traffic tickets.