Editor:
Re: ‘Not photo radar’ coming soon to high-crash areas, Sept. 19 column.
Columnist Tom Fletcher, in his BC Views article, is dead right. If you use a radar device to photograph a vehicle going through a red light and measure its speed, it is photo radar.
I know that Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth dislikes the term, as do most voters when they turfed out the NDP in 2001 on Gordon Campbell’s promise to eliminate it if his BC Liberals were elected.
As unpopular as it was then, and probably still is now, I argue that by doing so led us down the garden path to where we are now, the highest automobile insurance rates in the country. When you know your chances of getting caught for speeding are next to nil, you push the boundary. And we have been doing this for far too long. The result is that accidents and fatalities are up as are our insurance rates.
You can’t have it both ways, folks. Pay now by admitting that you are speeding and drive the speed limit – or pay later with higher rates to save ICBC from bankruptcy.
Simon Bergen-Henengouwen, White Rock
