Retiree calls for traffic cameras in HRM
Posted Apr 19, 2011 06:27:07 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A retired Dalhousie professor is appealing to the local police chief to lobby for traffic cameras in Halifax.
Morris Givner says he’s launching his campaign because he recently witnessed what he calls a “speeding maniac” almost kill a group of students from the Halifax Grammar School on Atlantic Avenue.
“If there had have been a speed camera present and the plates would have been photographed, the driver would receive a 200 dollar speeding ticket and this man or this woman would have learned a lesson,” said Givner.
Givner has written multiple letters to Police Chief Frank Beazley saying red light cameras and photo radar work in countries around the world. He tells the Rick Howe Show the cameras are successful in saving lives, preventing injuries, generating revenue and are needed in HRM.
“75 countries around the world have speed and red light cameras for more than 30 years,” he says. “How come the WHO (World Health Organization) highly recommends speed and red light cameras? Why does Australia have them all over the place, in the hundreds? Why does New Zealand have them? Why does the Republic of Korea? The United Kingdom? Throughout Europe?”
Givener, a retired pathology professor, says the current NDP government is not interested in introducing traffic cameras, even though he says they reduce the social burden of high-speed collisions.
“Since there aren’t any speed or red light cameras available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and you can’t have police at corners at all times, there are terrible accidents at intersections,” he said.
Givner says those crashes not only cost lives, they have a social and measurable financial cost. He says he doesn’t know how to prevent people from speeding but the traffic cameras could be a very effective start.
