Speed Cameras: Safety Tool or Cash Grab? The Debate Heats Up in Ontario!
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Summary
In this episode, we talk about the controversial issue of speed cameras in school zones across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and the potential to get rid of them all across the city of Toronto. Join us as we discuss the pros and cons of these cameras, and why we should keep them in schools zones.
Transcript
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every year in the city of toronto approximately 25 to 30 pedestrians are killed as they're walking
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around the city and a big reason for that is people simply are driving too fast hence the
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reason for speed cameras all around toronto and many municipalities in the gta however
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not everyone is a fan of it as we've seen with recent reports of vandalism and speed cameras all
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over southern ontario to talk more about it thrilled to be joining anthony fury anthony how are
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you doing great jim how are you doing good to see you good good to see you i'm a big proponent of
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these speed cameras especially in school zones dub for the preview ontario would like to get rid of
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all of them but you have some news regarding speed cameras as well well yeah i understand that there's
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going to be a lot of debate coming up at city council chambers across ontario about this because
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doug ford he's he's really sort of thrown the gauntlet out there he said that if municipalities
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don't get rid of these he will bring in provincial legislation to get rid of them so i've learned that
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next week vaughn city council is having an emergency session where they're going to sit down and do a
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vote on it vaughn actually paused speed camera enforcement earlier this year and it was a really
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tight vote and there was a lot of debate after a lot of residents complained and said this is a cash
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grab we don't support it reduce speed do do traffic safety but we don't like these get rid of them so
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they paused it which i thought was good leadership from mayor stephen del duca and they said they're
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going to take another look that was set to expire around now in the fall the pause and then they would
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say what do we do next right now well it really looks like they're gonna have to talk about just
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scrapping all of these uh one city council in toronto made a post saying oh we can't have all these
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taken down uh being vandalized we need to protect them and i responded with a post and we've gotten
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a lot of traction and you know thousands of likes and comments and responses back and forth where i
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said look just do away with this stuff right now because it's causing more headache than good i don't
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think this is the path forward i for me it's school safety i mean our daughters now are past university
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but we live near a couple of elementary schools in a high school and anthony quite frankly in the school
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zones drivers are not observing the crossing guards they're not at her observing the stop sign on the
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side of the buses it's it's carnage out there in the roads in these school zones and at the very least
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if you want to tweak the speed camera system in all the municipalities they've got to keep them in the
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school zones and i have no sympathy for people getting a speeding ticket and a school zone in
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ontario jim you're talking my language with the school issue i have three children in elementary
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school we walk them to school i see people running red lights i've said to the crossing guard multiple
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times like i hope you know you're okay because i worry about this lady i think she's going to be
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the one who gets she's the one there every crossing rather than the kids so lots of concerns uh for
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sure with all this lots of lawlessness going on but i think actual enforcement from police officers
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is something we need to do we have far too few police officers in toronto we actually have 500 fewer
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today than we had 10 years ago despite the fact the population has grown so i'm all about enforcement
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so many people running red lights uh like it never used to be but the speed cameras there's an inherent
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sense of lack of fairness there's a gotcha moment i got dinged on one at 10 30 p.m on like a thursday
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evening a few months ago and it was a street that uh used to be a 40 limit it's now a 30 limit uh there's
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a school nearby but i wasn't that close to the school and obviously there's no school activity
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at 10 30 and the ticket says 41. so i got dinged you know 80 bucks for 41 or whatever that's the
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lie i didn't fight the ticket because that's the way it is but you think like come on like good grief
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we're clearly just just trying to get a cash grab from people if you're we're charging someone where
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there's no cop present you got to pay 80 bucks because you went 41 kilometers an hour on on this
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street that was 40 up until yesterday kind of thing and that's the inherent sense of of lack of
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fairness so and then here's my proposal in in a lot of municipalities you have areas where you
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can't park in certain hours of the day or you can't do this and at the same time police officers
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will tell you if you're going two or three kilometers over the speed limit they are not
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going to give you a ticket so how about this in school zones we'll keep it strict from 8 a.m to 4 p.m
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during school hours but at 10 p.m on a saturday night in a school zone where there's no school
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and if you're two kilometers over the speed limit you're not going to get a ticket i think
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that would be fair for a lot of people you would still make your money on the tickets but you
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wouldn't be getting a ticket for 2k over on a saturday night late at night yeah i'm happy to
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do a reasonable test here and i think what you're talking about is is reasonable i think we've gone
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too far there are many speed cameras in school zones some that aren't they came up with this
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community safety zone phrase but you can just call anything a community safety zone with you know a
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pass of a of emotion and so forth at city council i think that's where people felt like
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uh they were definitely being aggrieved and the reason we're seeing this extreme reaction not just
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the people knocking these down or the one person or whatever it's kind of funny we can't find out
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who this person is but we can find everybody else we got cameras everywhere in society i still don't
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understand that so it really makes me kind of chuckle that this person's been able to do all this
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and i do not support vandalism no public property it's it's not a good situation we're at but it is
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reflective of the pulse of the city that this is a metaphor for how people feel and if we had first
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approached it in the type of scenarios you're talking about here people i think would have gone
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oh okay i got this ticket but man you know the kids are coming out for lunch hour i get it like
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why were you going over 40 when there's clearly little kids walking around right in this moment so
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there's to your point there are better ways to have done it out of the get-go and you raised a
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couple of very salient points anthony um every police force in this country are short-staffed
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most often officers go in the cruiser alone when they call for backup they have to wait for another
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car because they simply don't have enough people enough officers men and women manning their
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respective platoons and their time shift to cover all parts of the city and municipalities but
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there's no question olivia child the city of toronto are facing a dire cash crunch
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and the money from these tickets are paying a lot of bills otherwise wouldn't get paid
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and yet the challenge to your point about the policing issue is there are real stories i know
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someone who had this story they call the cops they say there's a person uh hammering on my door
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yelling and screaming and and she has a knife crazy lady with a knife and their response was
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does she have a gun and they're like excuse me and they have to triage the calls because they're
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only showing up if and these are just tell her to go away yell at the window to go away excuse me
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oh and then the next day you get a ticket for 80 dollars for going 42 kilometers it's like okay so
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i'm the criminal and yet these guys other guys are getting bail for murder you're not coming to my
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door for crazy people so that's where i think societal trust breaks down i think the speed camera
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issue is is a societal trust component and it and it's very fair because i mean people of all political
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stripes no matter what spectrum you fall on far left fall right in the middle young and old there is a
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sense of frustration with justice in the legal system of the bail system in this country from
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coast to coast we see it all the time anthony and they're like well wait a second why am i being
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paid yeah i only went 2k over but i let's come to some common sense we can have common sense in canada
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have your speed community safety zones in the school zones like from one end to the other and it's well
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marked that you're in a school zone this is the speed limit and from this time to this time if you go
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over you will get a ticket and i i can't find any logical reason why someone could complain with that
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because if you have any sense of decency and you're speeding in the school zone during school hours you
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should get a ticket yeah and i'm not sure if we even have seen that specific example really happen
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anywhere in the gta what you're proposing so sure let's give it a shot and see how that unfolds but that
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would be that would be too reasonable and we know not to expect that from our officials so but
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but to have the premier weigh in as forcefully as doug ford did one that's the only way it goes
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you know it's all or nothing it's all or nothing but i was like wow and i mean i live in the bedroom
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community north of toronto and a lot of communities across the country anthony are reverting to speed
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cameras a because they simply don't have enough officers to have speed traps everywhere b they're like
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that's a good way to make money and how it changes i don't know but we haven't heard the last of it
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but i'm glad you brought that up above vaughn it's something we'll be watching very closely he's anthony