A municipal judge has cast doubt on police usage of a device that reads license plates in traffic and automates the sending of fines without any human intervention. Photo radar was also suspended for a time by a judge, but the writer doesn’t remind us what happened to change minds on that technology.
Updates from January, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Snow removal is set to begin Sunday morning, the second campaign this winter, but the first to be done under curfew. Adjustments are being made so people can move their cars before 8.
Meezly
I’m surprised they don’t make an exception for snow removal – wouldn’t it be more efficient to remove snow AFTER curfew, when there is no one on the roads or sidewalks, and everyone had moved their cars?
Kate
I think they will. It’s mostly a matter of making sure people move their vehicles before the curfew falls.
Ephraim
And how do you ensure that people are allowed to move their cars after curfew? It’s cheaper to get the parking ticket than the ticket for breaking curfew. And SPVM are power crazy at the moment… no one trusts them NOT to give you a ticket for moving your car.
Kate
The point of that story is that the warning signs will be put up an hour earlier than usual so people will have time to move their vehicles before curfew.
After the snow is cleared, though, are you supposed to go out again to retrieve your car and bring it back to your street? What happens if you wait till the next day?
walkerp
If you are unlucky enough to own a car (my condolences) and you left it parked in the street, you better get it today because that snow is dense as hell and going to turn to solid ice overnight. You’ll need a jackhamer to get it out tomorrow.
Mark Côté
“After the snow is cleared, though, are you supposed to go out again to retrieve your car and bring it back to your street? What happens if you wait till the next day?”
Depends on where you park it. There are designated lots that presumably you aren’t supposed to leave your car in longer than necessary, but I just park on another street that has already been cleared (mine is one of the last to be done) and move it back whenever I get around to it, usually a day or two later (I didn’t use my car often before covid, and now I’m actually worried that the battery might die because I use it so infrequently).
Also it’s not uncommon for the snow to be cleared in the middle of the night, so for sure no one is waiting around then to move their car back the moment their street is clear.
Kate
Thanks, Mark Côté. I realized on writing this post that I had no idea how that worked.
jeather
I’m curious what will happen. According to info-neige, they are cleaning the west side tonight, and the east side tomorrow first thing. Usually everyone rushes to move to the west side as soon as it’s cleared (usually the delay is more than 12 hours though), but obviously you can’t overnight unless they happen to come very early. I will see or not, depending on how I sleep.
mare
Someone in our street had a very bad day.
I was walking the dogs late, after curfew, because it’s nice and quiet. I saw him from a distance while I was walking in his direction, but on the other side of the street. He was standing next to his car, that apparently had been hit by a huge tree branch that had snapped from too weight of too much heavy wet snow. It was more like half a tree actually and had been moved onto the sidewalk and garden, and a tow truck was getting ready to pull his car out of the pile of snow. One of the tow truck crew was writing a ticket despite the man arguing that the insurance assessor hadn’t seen the damage yet so he couldn’t have dug out his car and move it. He was told to just use the photos for the insurance and he could use them to contest the ticket as well, but we have to tow you, and we have to give you the ticket. “And if the police passes you might get a ticket for breaking the curfew too.” I thought that last line was unnecessarily mean and expected the man to explode, but he just turned around and went inside, fuming.When I passed on my way back home, the car was gone, the tree branch was still on the sidewalk and when I write this, four hours later, the first snow clearing vehicle has yet to show up.
Joey
Given that we’re all supposed to be staying home, it would be great if the snow removal crews didn’t have to start at exactly seven. Two days in a row of the car-warning horns at 6:30 a.m. is a lot, no?
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Kate
A woman accused of defrauding many small businesses with a fake claim of collecting for advertising services has eluded trial because of delays.
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Kate
A man was arrested early Sunday after his mother was stabbed in the Plateau.
Update at noon: The TVA link now says the woman has died, making her homicide #2 of the year.
mare 10:16 on 2021-01-17 Permalink
AFAIK Photo radar is only allowed with clear signage, and will only catch the stupid. There’s no deterrent, when they aren’t obviously present with lots of tech, you can speed to you heart’s content. I don’t know the reason for this; privacy laws, lack of front plates so you can’t see the driver (speeding tickets might incur demerit points) and you need a set of two photos, and maybe other reasons, like the brotherhood afraid of being replaced by technology.
Ephraim 12:39 on 2021-01-17 Permalink
The photo radar zones just act as speed zones… everyone slows down until they are well past the cameras. It’s like a speed bump on the highway for the most part. The government set up the signs along many streets in Montreal… but there are no cameras. And you need to catch the car from the front (for a picture of the driver) and the back as well. (Why no one drives up to them and spray paints the camera each morning, I don’t understand…. it would end the stupidity.) The speed limit on the highway isn’t based on any scientific fact, really. If driving 120km/h in the middle of nowhere is really less safe than driving 100km/h, then cars should all have limiters. And we should have signs that change based on road conditions (in France they actually have different limits based on weather/road condition.)
Calgary and Edmonton uses this… https://www.getparkplus.com/ and there are other places as well. You don’t get a ticket on your window… they roll by and photo your plate, place and time. Next day they compare photos, times, etc. and remove all the paid parking (pay by plate) and send out the tickets. You pay by plate, like in Westmount.
It’s not really fair, in MOST ways. Now, if they used these to hand out the tickets for standing in a handicapped zone… I’d have no qualms with it.
Blork 13:15 on 2021-01-17 Permalink
I got nailed by photo radar a few years ago on the 15 south near the 20. It’s an autoroute, so I assumed the limit was 100, and I’m generally in the habit of just moving at the same speed as the mob when driving in such places. I saw the “Photo Radar” sign and didn’t think anything of it because I had no idea I was speeding (just try to find a speed limit sign along there… it’s like they expect you JUST KNOW). On that particular day there wasn’t much traffic, and I think I was doing 95 or so. Apparently the (unmarked) limit there, despite it being an autoroute, is 70.
The thing about photo radar is that it can only identify the CAR, not the DRIVER, so they can’t issue demerit points. When that ticket arrived in the mail it came with a notice the owner of the car was being fined for speeding but no demerit points were applied, and it provided an option to identify the driver if in fact it was someone else.
DeWolf 13:42 on 2021-01-17 Permalink
When I was in Melbourne and rented a car to visit a friend’s place outside of the city, I was surprised at just how calm and obedient the traffic was. Almost nobody went over the speed limit. I later found out why: Victoria’s roads are so saturated with photo radar that if you go above the limit you’re always guaranteed a ticket. I later received a $250 ticket in the mail for going 108 in a 100 zone. If I had been using an Australian licence it would have involved some demerit points too.
Long story short, there are only two ways to reduce speeding: redesign the actual roads so it’s physically difficult/unsafe to go too fast or have a very comprehensive regime of speed cameras. As usual, we have a bunch of half-measures that don’t really work, including ineffective speed cameras and nonsensical speed limits that encourage people to break the rules.
Blork 14:40 on 2021-01-17 Permalink
DeWolf, I don’t like your first option (“redesign the actual roads so it’s physically difficult/unsafe to go too fast”) because that will not stop dumbasses from driving too fast, and the result will be carnage.
Kate 16:08 on 2021-01-17 Permalink
The La Presse story Sunday isn’t primarily about photo radar. It mentions a device on police cars that sweeps the license plates of other cars in traffic and sends fines to people late to pay their SAAQ fees. The question of photo radar only comes up at the end when the reporter notes that it too was suspended for a period by a judge.
DeWolf 18:31 on 2021-01-17 Permalink
Blork, I’m talking about traffic calming, the effectiveness of which has been well demonstrated around the world. Think of Duluth Street – it’s practically impossible to go more than 30 km/h because it’s narrow, there are planters and corner bulb-outs and the road surface is bumpy. On larger streets, so-called “road diets” have been shown to be effective at reducing speeds by narrowing lanes, introducing visual complexity and installing physical barriers like pedestrian islands. When people speed, it’s usually because the road is too wide and they feel comfortable going fast. There are tons of resources about this on the internet, including this info sheet from the US Dept. of Transportation: https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/road_diets/guidance/info_guide/ch2.cfm
Of course that’s for streets in an urban/suburban context. In terms of highways, which are built for speed, enforcement is probably the only solution.
Quebec also has a problem with speed limits, which make no sense in too many cases. Just for example, I have no idea why the limit on La Vérendrye is 40km/h when it’s a limited-access boulevard with no pedestrian access on one side.
Phil M 02:31 on 2021-01-18 Permalink
I got popped by a license plate scanner a few years ago for forgetting to renew my registration. But it wasn’t an automated fine sent to my house. I got pulled over and the cop gave me a $400-something dollar ticket. Not fun. Maybe I should have taken it to court on constitutional grounds…