Dear editor:

Destruction of speed cameras across the province is as ludicrous as the continual, costly replacement of destroyed, unwarranted surveillance technology. All parties to this diversionary debate are missing the wider focus of this pointed destruction.

Canadians — and many people in countries around the world — do not agree to or want even more blatant daily state surveillance of ongoing activities. That is a tool of authoritarian dictatorships to track and punish opponents without legal justification, human interaction or warrant.

State/corporate surveillance gathers, aggregates and uses massive amounts of individualized data without our knowledge or permission. In Britain, cameras are also being demolished at a prodigious rate, and are now used for live facial recognition — and immediate arrest.

There are highly effective alternate methods to slow down drivers in school zones — the ostensible purpose of Ontario’s current crop of speed cameras —
which actually train drivers to all slow down in school zones during school hours.

The most effective — highly-visible signs “school ahead,” then an electric sign with the school zone limit above and your speed electronically below.

Further down the road, an “end of school zone” sign. If the speed limit is 60 kilometres an hour, and the school zone is 40 km/h, make that clear rather than bounce back and forth from 70-60-40-50 km/h in a short stretch of road.

The most obvious fix — run the lit, flashing signs ONLY during school hours. For heaven’s sake, do not force a school area slow-down at 9:30 p.m. on a weeknight, let alone 2 p.m. on a Sunday. That is senseless.

Build in some civilized leeway for defined time limits when children are actually present — tickets for one to two kilometres over the limit is machine-stupid and aggravating.

The current strategy is not working. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of — in this instance, very costly — stupidity.

Daphne Lavers
NOTL