BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following is in response to letters regarding noisy vehicles, including 'LETTER: Noisy vehicle 'problem is real and goes unchecked',' published Sept. 22, and 'LETTER: Rising police budget doesn't reflect noise enforcement,' published Sept. 23.
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As a retired member of the Barrie Police Service, I feel compelled to answer the two previous letters regarding noisy vehicles.
I agree with the statement the Highway Traffic Act has sufficient offences to enable police officers to lay appropriate charges. However, you need the appropriate number of officers to lay those charges.
The average citizen would be shocked to learn the actual number of officers who are actually on patrol at any given time.
In my opinion, there is an extremely high rate of absent officers for a variety of reasons — for example, illness, stress or seconded to other areas in the police service. It is a known fact that if a special unit requires more bodies they are taken from the patrol unit, which then leaves them short to attempt to satisfy and complete the run-of-the-mill calls for service.
I must admit policing attitudes have changed since my retirement over 20 years ago. The disrespect and lack of civility towards the police has certainly not made the police career any easier.
Granted, some of the disrespect has been brought about by the actions of certain police agencies here in Canada and in the U.S.A. However, until an officer treats a citizen rudely or aggressively, why can’t the citizens remain reasonable? As has been said many times, you catch more with sugar than you do with salt.
If noisy vehicles are the only problem people have to complain about, we live in a safe society.
Now, as to requesting a costing from the OPP, that has been tried in the past. Councillors, at the time, used common sense and logic to turn the costing down. lf I am correct, the OPP, when submitting a costing, low balls the amount for the first contract, usually two or three years. Then it jumps dramatically. I believe Parry Sound, Orillia and Alliston experienced dramatic cost increases.
As to the lack of traffic enforcement, are the citizens willing to see a police vehicle parked on the street or at an intersection waiting for hours to charge a couple of excessively noisy vehicles who may roar by? I don’t think so. I am sure you would hear people say, “Is that all they have to do?”
If people are bothered so much by noise, why would they want to live on or close to main roads? I at one time lived within half a mile of Highway 400. We heard the singing tires of transports, OPP cruisers blasting their sirens. No, we didn’t complain. We lived with it. It is part of city noise.
Bernie Hunt
Innisfil
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