Friday, November 24, 2006

Citizen complaints about speeders have once again caused police to deploy traffic radar. The Charlottetown Canada city council approved overtime for police to run radar speed traps. Police keep moving the traps and changing the time of day (running radar) to keep the (speeding) public guessing. The council approved $20,000 for the last three months of this year, and plan to approve more money for more overtime to run radar next year.

In September, before the crackdown, police issued about 320 speeding citations. The first month (October) of the radar crackdown police issued almost twice the speeding citations as the previous month -- almost 600 speeding tickets! During one period, about an hour and a half long, at one location police wrote 21 speeding tickets (that averages a ticket every 4.2 minutes).

The city is considering using photo radar for speed enforcement. Photo radar takes much more time to set up making it more difficult to change locations. Radar alignment is critical to get an accurate speed measurement. In addition the cameras (front and rear) must be adjusted for expected speed violations and radar location to the road, otherwise the photographs could miss the driver and/or license plate.

CopRadar