The City of Toronto has just spent over five million dollars installing these count down traffic signals all over town.That's a great idea. "The devices provide a numeric count down display that indicates the number of seconds remaining for a pedestrian to complete their crossing of a street" according to the City of Toronto web site.
It was a great idea til the police got wind of it.
I suspect as a result of a dozen pedestrian fatalities in the first two weeks of the year, police began fining people crossing on the flashing red hand. They did a blitz for several days.
Rather than ticketing the cars running people over, they took the easy route.
Many people very plenty upset.
Police said the rule is, as soon as the flashing red hand comes on, you cannot cross the street. You must stop. If you've already started okay. But if you see it, you must stop or pay the consequences.
So why spend five million dollars to install all the count-down timers, if you can't use them? If it comes on once you are in the intersection, it's of no value. Are you going to turn back?
But if it comes on and displays "15", the obvious reaction is "I can make it in 15 seconds" and away you go.
But if you are not supposed to cross once it is on, what possible value is it? Except for the police to hike their revenues.
The left hand doesn't know what the the right hand is doing.
Sounds like the government hard at work.
[P.S. I didn't get one of those tickets. I'm just a whiner....]
2 comments:
Helps us drivers speed up when we see it countin' down. Never hit any city folk as yet??!
It's the vehicles' drivers that need the tickets, not the pedestrians, but it's way easier to nab the peds, so the cops take a "walk" on the easier side.
Post a Comment