BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following is a letter to the editor and an open letter to Barrie-Innisfil MP John Brassard regarding speed cameras in Barrie.
Dear Mr. Brassard,
I’m writing to you because Barrie city council appears not to have contacted you regarding the signage and use of the yellow flashing lights in the areas of the speed cameras used within the City of Barrie.
I have worked in the film and broadcast industry as line producer for over 50 years here in Canada and abroad. In that capacity, I’ve had times when I’ve had to approach either the police, the film department, the economic development departments, the MPP, the MP and the mayor on the subject of exemptions from current road rules.
In all cases, I’ve had no issues with getting exemptions, especially if the exemption is to make the roads safer for the public and drivers alike.
As I wrote in an earlier letter to BarrieToday on Jan. 3, 2024:
“In one second, the distance a car travels doing 40 km/h is 36.4538 feet (11.111 metres), or about three car lengths. I timed reading the sign that replaced the flashing lights. In several tries, it took me an average of four-and-a-half seconds to read the sign completely, and English is my first language. Weather was mediocre and overcast. If it’s not your first language or it’s snowing/raining/dark, expect longer read times, if you get through it at all.
“Therefore, a car would travel four-and-a-half by 36.4538 feet, which equals a whopping 164.042 feet (50 metres). That’s a long time to have your eyes off the road. In fact, road signs around the world are designed to be glanced at to interpret what they mean. Hence the shapes and colour of signs, usually without text, minimizing the time your eyes are not off the road. Less than a second is generally considered the rule ...”
This fact doesn’t even take into account that you need to be within 15 metres of the sign to read it, whereas you can see the flashing lights more than a half-kilometre away, even in bad weather.
Incidentally, this is the reason we have flashing lights at railway crossings and not signs of text.
As such, the current rule not permitting the yellow lights to be on if there is a sign indicating speeding times serves no purpose other than to make the roads incredibly unsafe.
These are tough times for everyone, and making the roads less safe for the sake of picking the public’s pocket is inexcusable.
The flashing yellow lights need to be on, for the safety of the public and the drivers. Period.
As I’ve suggested before, program the cameras so that it knows when the lights are flashing. If this is not possible, then these cameras serve no purpose other than to create a money grab for the city and the people that sell and maintain the cameras.
Therefore, I’m asking you, on behalf of the Barrie city council (although not sanctioned by it), to create an exemption from this ineffectual rule and turn the lights back on. If an exemption cannot be made, then remove the sign and put the lights back on. Everyone knows that flashing lights mean slow down.
While we’re on the topic of signs, all safety zones should be mandated to have a ‘Safety Zone Starts’ and its equally important ‘Safety Zone Ends.’ Of interest, there is no such sign on Big Bay Point Road, where the cameras were first installed.
Everyone wants a safer city, and the yellow flashing lights do just that. I look forward to seeing the highly visible yellow flashing lights turned back on, permanently, during the associated ‘Safety Zone Times.’
Seaghan Hancocks
Barrie
