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LETTERS: Let speeders fund traffic dilemma

Editor: As an Alberta transplant from 10 years ago, I have come to love this province.
Laser / Radar gun file.
Evan Seal photo
A return of photo radar would solve the province’s traffic-funding problems

Editor:

As an Alberta transplant from 10 years ago, I have come to love this province.

Now in my retirement years, I enjoy the mild winters, vibrant colours of the early spring that other provinces can only dream of, and the awe-dropping scenery of the blue ocean gently caressed by glorious mountains and bright green foliage.

But there is one thing that perturbs me more than any other. It is similar, ironically, to the admiration and jealously guarded right to bear arms in the U.S. And that is BC’s outright refusal to use photo radar.

Both actions result in considerable personal tragedy and a total disregard for the rule of law – not to mention the financial cost to our health-care system.

What is even more ironic is the fact that bringing it back would provide the very solution to our traffic-funding dilemma.

Consider this: Calgary reaps over $50 million per year from photo radar. It is not a stretch to imagine that the GVA could easily bring in $200 million. Is that not exactly what the mayors were looking for?

Former premier Campbell promised to remove it and was re-elected. Perhaps Premier Christy Clark will recognize this folly and bring it back; funding problem solved and our streets will once again be safer. And the only ones paying for it are those breaking the law.

Simon Bergen-Henengouwen, White Rock