Editor: Dear Ms. Koegler, you did not fail to communicate your message in your first letter. I picked up on the sub-text right away. It was the man who took offence, that failed to do so, either by not knowing how or by a desire to be self-righteous.
You are right, of course. The Town is addicted to the money it gets and cannot give the drug up.
Most of my friends, (all mothers in the main), and fellow ticketed mob, object to it, money-wise, but more than that, it is the fact that we are being spied on all the time and cannot relax. Most of us are good, conscientious drivers, unlike the writer, who admits he speeded deliberately. We don’t. It’s just that we have lively modern cars, and as we are thinking of what to get for dinner, we inadvertently fail to see that we are doing 61 km/h instead of the 50 km/h. Once we realize our error, we adjust, but sometimes it is too late. The fines are exorbitant. Sure, there are some rotten apples, but to try to punish everybody in town to get the few is wrong and anti-social.
These traffic ticketers park where they know people are likely to speed up. For instance, the visitor from out of town who drove along Harvie Heights Road from the Banff end doing over 60 km/h and was ticketed with a huge fine, was incensed and wrote a letter saying he’d never visit Canmore again. Who could blame him? These wanna-be-cops sit in that deserted car park waiting for the very few cars on this secondary road, the Trans-Canada being on one side, field and forest on the other, no houses and no children playing, just waiting, like the spider to catch the fly. The poor driver is trying not to notice that the traffic on his right is doing 110 km/h on the Trans-Canada, whilst he has maintain 50 km/h with an empty road ahead and before he knows it he’s going a bit faster. This is sheer entrapment and they know it. It’s easy prey.
This whole business has caused resentment in Town, it’s divisive – the self-righteous do-gooders versus the bumbling innocents who didn’t mean to be speeding anyway – and does nothing to make the populace happy, which is the Town’s job.
We are spied on throughout our lives now, there is very little privacy. Surely, when we come home we should be able to relax and feel that there are no bogey-men around every corner. This is not the pleasant Canmore we expect or deserve. It’s like living in the U.S.
The Town has had over $1 million dollars in revenue, aside from what the Province has got, and only a pittance has been given to programs in the town. Time to give up this drug, Canmore.
Marjorie R. Bridge,
Canmore
