What do you people think of our Traffic Cops in this town?
My Guess is why they are Traffic Cops is because they cant do what a real cops do fight crime, Investigations, Serve and protect our city or they have been demoted to traffic because they dont make good cops.
Traffic cops got it easy, sit in your car eat donuts & write tickets sounds like a cushy job to me.
I have seen the same traffic cop on his crotch rocket durring the 5 days of summer we had roll through a stop sign in front of Cow bay Cafe. Now does he give himself a ticket…i dont think so.
You know who im talking about… Millhouse (the cop) or Gay Jay as some call him
No, you definitely don’t. You may be asked to cover, etc, but it’s not really about a rotation.
As for the rupert traffic fines, here’s my take on it: Terrace RCMP have a larger city, with more traffic, more cars, more stop signs, more traffic lights. More RCMP too. Yet Rupert RCMP write about a third more tickets than the Terrace RCMP.
Why? Probably because they’ve been told to do so.
Personally, I think it’s a waste – the RCMP guys are too well trained and well paid to basically be manning toll booths.
[quote=“stinkyfeet”]
I have seen the same traffic cop on his crotch rocket durring the 5 days of summer we had roll through a stop sign in front of Cow bay Cafe. Now does he give himself a ticket…i dont think so.[/quote]
Too bad you didn’t get it on video. Then you could go down and swear out a complaint yourself.
Alberta seems to be trying to address this kind of issue. They are turning more and more of the lower end policing duties to the Alberta Sheriffs to do, leaving the RCMP to handle more important policing duties like investigations. The Sheriffs there are doing highway patrol, warrant executions, etc…
If you think traffic duty is something the RCMP are “too well trained and well paid” to do… take a look at who delivers witness subpoena’s for the Crown Counsel. That’s a lot of money to hand someone a piece of paper. There are a ton of duties that could easily be given to someone else to perform, leaving the RCMP to focus on public safety type stuff.
Yeah, the other side of this is that a lot of times the routine traffic stop (ie: giving a sucker citizen a ticket for stopping only 3 seconds at a stop sign instead of 5 seconds) can turn into a full-blown incident that requires the RCMP. ie: the sucker citizen is wanted, or something like that.
But you gotta admit that the whole 5-second stop bullshit had to come from above. Somebody was telling the RCMP guys to write those bullshit tickets.
5 seconds… as I do remember it’s come to a complete stop…no traffic go…no time has been set… and the only time I got one, the officer never said anything about time,just my rolling stop…lol $137 later…But then again I learned in the Eastern Prov.'s and some of the basic rule maybe different Prov.to Prov.
Well, the 5-second thing was a good example of them giving tickets to people who didn’t break any laws.
They’d pull people over, even though they stopped, and told them they were supposed to count to 5 before proceeding. Then gave them tickets.
So yeah, you can drive safely, obey the laws, and they’ll still find a reason to give you a ticket. Do you think they’re just better drivers in Terrace?
Without knowing all of the details I’m sure that these drivers must have been rolling through stop signs. If someone pauses for 3 seconds at a stop sign I can’t believe that they’re getting a ticket. What does the Motor Vehicle Act state??
Well, I know two people (and I think an HTMF member too) who received stop sign tickets. They stopped for 2 or 3 seconds, and the guy told them they were supposed to stop for 5 seconds. So he acknowledged they had stopped, but just not long enough to avoid his toll.
The law says you have to stop, then proceed when safe. No mention of time.
Again, any explanation for Terrace RCMP significantly writing fewer tickets than Rupert RCMP? Possibly the fact that their salaries (well, at least of the traffic guys) are directly funded by the tickets?
Yes, I have no problem with people getting tickets for speeding, driving like maniacs, running stop signs. The problem is that the police seem to have been told to just start writing as many tickets as possible for any reason, heck, even make up some reasons.
Yeah:-) That would be me. Stopped at the corner by Annuciation school got a ticket for 130+ dollars. I now mentally count off 5+ seconds at every stop sign. Live and learn, I guess.
Well, the problem is that the law says you have to stop. It doesn’t say 5 seconds. The 5 seconds thing is a cash grab, since the money goes directly to fund the traffic cop’s salary.
I just looked up the Act and you are absolutely right. That is concerning. I seem to remember the manual for new drivers saying that one had to stop for 3 seconds but that must have been a guideline rather than a requirement. That poses an important question: Who would be asking the traffic cops to hand out tickets for an offense that wasn’t law? Cops always write the section of the Act of the tickets they write. If any of these people still have their tickets they should research the section stated on their ticket. If the section is not there then I think that would be grounds to have the fine and offense thrown out.
Yeah. Agreed. They had a sting operation set-up. A plain clothes officer with a wireless microphone was standing outside the corner store holding a pizza box and called ahead to another officer over the hill. The officer over the hill who gave me the ticket didn’t see my alleged rolling stop. I didn’t fight it, paid the fine.
I think if you ask people who have received the stop sign toll booth tickets (especially on McBride and 2nd), you’ll find that they were all told the same thing: you didn’t stop for 5 seconds.
If you further compare how both Terrace and Rupert spend their traffic fine money, you’d also find differences. Terrace spends its money on crime prevention and youth programs. Rupert spends its traffic fine money on paying traffic police salaries.
So think about that. In Rupert, even if there isn’t a direct order to write as many tickets as possible, there is a direct connection between the number of tickets written and the existence of one or two traffic positions. In Terrace, it there is no such connection.
So I’ll go out on a limb and say that Terrace RCMP tend to write tickets when people deserve them. Rupert RCMP tend to write tickets when they can.
Anyway, if you look around HTMF, I remember actually looking up the PDF files for 2006 (or 2007?) that explained the traffic revenue for Rupert and Terrace, and how it was spent. It’s around here somewhere – it’s also on the BC Government website somewhere.
Just so I’m clear, in this instance you were fined for “allegedly” not coming to a complete stop? If that is the case then the penalty was appropriate. If the cop said that you should have stopped for 5 seconds when it was actually 3 seconds then we have a problem.
Could he have said that he would have liked you to stop for five seconds or was in a context that it was the law?
I got a speeding ticket near Prince George one time when I was clocked at 112 km/h. The cop told me that if I kept it under 110 km/h I’d never get another ticket. I didn’t feel that he was tellling me that legally I could go 110 km/h but that is what I could get away with. Could the cop in your instance just been telling you that you’ll be ok if you give a 5 second count at stop signs?
No mention of times on a stop sign. Just come to a complete stop.
on a ICBC road test if you waited the 5 secs…and you could of went after 1sec…then you cant go because you waited 5 secs will result in a mark against you for not taking the opportunity to go when you could of.
Basically your causing people behind you to become subjects of road rage.
as I do remember it’s come to a complete stop…no traffic go…no time has been set… and the only time I got one, the officer never said anything about time,just my rolling stop…lol $137 later…But then again I learned in the Eastern Prov.'s and some of the basic rule maybe different Prov.to Prov.