Smashing speed cameras passes for policy in Ford’s Ontario

Christopher Hume –

Downtown office towers trying to stem bird deaths

Dennis Hanagan

 As the recent spate of dismem­bered speed cameras reminds us, no one should underestimate the power of the automobile to unleash humanity’s inner van­dal. For months now, drivers in Toronto have been chopping down these proven safety de­vices whose purpose is to force them to slow down, or face a hefty fine.

For some, the pressure to abide by the rules is too much. Egged on by Ontario’s witless premier, Doug Ford, they persist in their self-serving conviction that the roads are theirs to do with as they please.

Ford is the latest in a family of right-wing populists that have tried their damndest to keep On­tario and Toronto slouching res­olutely backwards into a distant past.

When Doug Ford’s baby brother, Rob, was elected may­or of Toronto in 2010, the first utterance to pass his lips was a promise to end what he called “the war on the car.” Many were unaware that such a battle was under way, but in the new chief magistrate’s mind, drivers were being victimized by plans to build new streetcar lines, reduce the number of parking spots and – worst of all – make room for bicycle lanes on city streets.

Those streets, Ford declared, “were built for buses, cars and trucks, not for people on bikes.” By 2011, barely a year after bike lanes were installed on Jarvis Street, he managed to get City Council to agree to their remov­al. At great cost to Toronto tax­payers, those imagined imped­iments to auto hegemony were duly eliminated.

Since then, Big Brother Doug has taken up the torch and in­troduced legislation to clear the remaining bike thoroughfares from three of the city’s clogged main arteries: Bloor, Yonge and University. But in July, Justice Paul Schabas of the Ontario Su­perior Court ruled that Ford’s heavy-handed efforts to turn back the clock were dangerous enough to be considered uncon­stitutional.

Plain dumb, Schabas might have added. As the judge ar­gued, “separated or protected bicycle lanes reduce motor ve­hicle traffic congestion by pro­viding an alternative method of transportation that is safer for all users of the roads.”

More recently, Ford further embarrassed himself by siding with scofflaws who have repeat­edly cut down speed cameras in dozens of locations across To­ronto.

Reaching into his bag of ba­nalities, Ford blustered noisily about a “cash grab” and once again revealed his unswerving dedication to car culture. While cities around the world are do­ing what they can to end or at least lessen the dire impacts of vehicular domination, Ford and his fossilized government re­main mired in yesterday’s mis­takes.

Even the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police has come out in support of speed camer­as. “Employing ASE [automat­ed speed enforcement] tools,” the association said in a recent statement, “has been proven to reduce speeding driving behav­iour, and make our roads safe for everyone – drivers, cyclists pedestrians and especially chil­dren and other vulnerable road users.”

The Association of Ontario Municipalities has also come out in favour of speed camer­as. In a letter to the premier in September, the organization called them “evidence-based and cost-effective tools to sup­port road safety that have broad public support.”

The deeper issue, of course, is the way the act of driving itself affects the human brain. Once drivers enter their cars – steel-encased personal mo­bility devices – they settle into a womb-like man-made envi­ronment that erases proximity, encourages disconnection and removes responsibility.

It’s never the driver’s fault: I couldn’t see, or hear. I was in a hurry. It was dark. How was I to know?

Drivers caught on speed cameras complain about be­ing treated unfairly. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with speeding, the cameras are to blame. It has nothing to do with safety, they insist; they’re just another nasty revenue gen­erator.

This is what happens when normally sensitive and caring people lose their humanity in a vast network designed to al­low cars to speed uninterrupted where we live, work and play. Anything that gets in the way, that slows them down, is an af­front to the system, an obstacle to be either avoided or eliminat­ed.

Aided and abetted by pow­erful political leaders, car cul­ture has produced a population whose inflated sense of entitle­ment justifies their attempts to destroy any measure that incon­veniences their right to destroy the public realm. Lest they for­get, convenience, like driving, is a privilege, not a right.