NDP Mask the Photo Radar Cash Grab with Public Safety Rhetoric

• No coincidence that new photo radar cash grab comes to the rescue of slipping tax revenues
  
• Photo radar targets generally safe and respectable drivers to reach revenue quotas
  
• Photo radar acts as a substitute to police who should be identifying dangerous traffic offenders
  
• System of vicarious liability makes mockery of justice system

WINNIPEG: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation today called the NDP's bluff claiming that photo radar has more to do with predictable revenue growth than anything to do with public safety.

"The public safety argument is a red hearing," said Victor Vrsnik, CTF provincial director. "Photo radar is a cash grab that considers all drivers a menace to public safety.

The photo radar experience shows that it's generally the safe and respectable drivers who end up paying the piper, not the criminal elements that photo radar enthusiasts propose to target.

Mike Cain, the BC spokesman for the anti-photo radar group SENSE (www.sense.bc.ca), said the photo radar program become an unpopular cash grab "that milked $100 million in traffic tickets out of motorists." Since then, the BC government nixed the program.

"Manitoba motorists can expect to become the next victims of the NDP's insatiable appetite for more revenue," noted Vrsnik.

According to Cain, public support for photo radar in BC hinged on the false belief that good drivers had nothing to fear. But to reach the ticket volumes that make photo radar and red light cameras profitable, police had to target more than just reckless drivers and speed demons. Everyone was getting nailed with tickets, from bus drivers to grandmothers.

The CTF believes that public safety is better served with more police to patrol the streets to ensure traffic offenders are licensed, insured, competent, and unimpaired.

"Automated enforcement fines cannot do the job of police officers to stop and prevent reckless drivers. Manitoba is better off with more cops to manage dangerous and drunk drivers than red light and photo radar cameras that nab safe and respectable motorists," concluded Vrsnik.