Our local paper carried a story last week explaining the mysterious traffic monitors....
Harris Road speeders get mail about driving
Safer City Abbotsford and University College of the Fraser Valley are into the final week of data collection of their latest speed management project that began on Jan. 27.
Since January, second-year criminology students have been collecting data that is being used by Abbotsford Police to nab those who are travelling well above the posted speed limit through the Harris Road corridor.
Those travelling Harris Road may have noticed students recording vehicle plates at one point then again at another point much further down the stretch.
Students were recording plates at both locations. The laptop computer technology time stamped each plate as it was recorded, and calculated the average speed over the distance.
"One day we had over 800 plates recorded," remarked Const. Daffydd Hermann of the Abbotsford Police Dep't.
He added that a very high number of matches of those plates were seen consistently coming through the data, and none of them were doing the posted speed limit. Most of these drivers were exceeding the speed limit by a considerable margin, he said.
Abbotsford Police and their force of student volunteers have collected more than 1,200 plate matches that are being analysed to determine the best way for the department to take a more aggressive enforcement role.
After the first week of the study, those who were exceeding the posted speed received a letter in the mail advising them of their oversight and a warning to correct their driving behavior.
"Believe it or not, we have received some positive feedback from letter recipients,"said Hermann, who hopes the majority of the 400 people who received letters would decrease their speed.
University College of the Fraser Valley Criminal Justice department head, Darryl Plecas, has been busy entering this data determining what effects this project has had on the regular drivers of this corridor.
"It appears the drivers who received a letter in the first week of the study decreased their speed by 3 km/h, while those who didn't receive a letter were actually increasing their speed by the same amount," explained Plecas. The second-yeay criminology students are expected to have their full results published by the end of the semester.
The Harris Road speed corridor study is just one of several projects in which Safer City has teamed up with Abbotsford Police, UCFV and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, to put a dent in Abbotsford's need for speed.
Taken from the Abbotsford & Mission News , Mar 22 2003
So I'm wondering if so many people are travelling above the speed limit, including myself, maybe the speed limit is too low ? I'm sure that won't be one of the recommendations of the study .To date I've only received the first letter, but once I was aware of their presence I altered my route a little ( probably about the time it would take to drive through there at the posted limit ). Watch out Big Brother is watching !

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Democracy dies in darkness, you have to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight

Sure...if the constraint for setting posted speed limits favors optimum driving conditions:

No darkness, foggy, hazy or inclement weather of any kind.

Mimimal traffic, both vehiclular and pedestian.

All vehicle operators drive lawfully and competently, and do so without distraction.

Yeah, right!

I watch the traffic report news in the mornings and wonder how ANYONE can manage to be involved in an accident at dawn with light traffic???!

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2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

Thats how they set speed limits in my neck of the woods. Specifically they figure 85% of the people are driving the approipate speed for the road and they set the speed limit acordingly. I heard of one road where the locals complained about the traffic going too fast for them so they asked the state to do something. So the state monitored the traffic, took the middle of the 85%, and raised the speed limit!

thank god thats illegal in the states!

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1989 260E
- 300E engine
1998 C230
1995 E320

How did you arrive at that conclusion?

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Scott Longston
Northern California Wine Country...
"Turbos whistle, grapes wine..."

I thought you Yanks already use toll gates as timing devices to perform the same task.

George





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was




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not




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author.

when I was in high school (a whole year back) some students from a nearby middle school did a study on how fast the traffic was where one of the kids lived. It so happens that he lived right next to the back parking lot, which was a fun route to get to school (the turn on that road was tight and perfect for drifting, then a slight curve). Anyways, he borrowed a radar gun from a friend of theirs (cop) and took the average speed of everyone. Ironically, around that time, I was called in to the principle's office for doing 65 in a 25! Thank god the cop didn't get my speed himself, or I wouldn't have my car, but I got quite a lecture from the principle about how driving was a privelage and how I wouldn't be able to park at school if I kept it up.

So, they're getting people to slow down a tad (3 km/hr is like 1 1/2 mile per hour, right?), so "it works"...but I'll bet that those same people are now living in the fear of accidentally going slightly faster than "expected" and getting busted for it with little recrimination...

Yeah, that makes sense... I think I'm actually a worse driver when there's a cop around; I get paranoid that I'll make the slightest mistake and get pulled over for it, and that makes me nervous.

If they start doing something like that down here, I'll give up my license.