rantUout.com - Speed Trap Cash Grab

As many of you know, I just finished a 4100 km road trip down east in Canada and back through Lake Placid, NY, USA. Not once did I have a problem with the police. I also have a clean driving record after 35 years of driving. Yet yesterday I get stopped for speeding 2 minutes from my office. I work on a side road in a business district next to the international airport. This road is 4 cars wide but with one line down the center. It has no posted speed signs so as a result driving 81 km's per hour in what is supposed to be a 50km per hour zone as per municipal by-laws is defensive driving. In other words, if I exit my parking lot and enter the traffic accelerating to 50km per hour will get me rear ended or at a minimum passed by angry motorists flipping me the bird.

I have worked in this office for 7 years and it has always been this way. On my first day back at the office at lunch I get stopped doing 81 in a 50. I accept this and move on. What I don't accept is that the police nor the city have ever dealt with this street (signs, lines and radar) in the past or since I received the ticket. The net result is that they get my money and others money from that one afternoon. I now drive 50 km's per hour trembling with fear watching the fast moving car approaching in my rear view mirror and the obvious cursing of my slow driving from that driver.

To the city of Mississauga and the Peel Regional Police...don't use the street (Explorer Drive) as a one time cash grab. Fix the problem. You let it go for years and allowed a culture of fast driving to be created. Don't expect it to be stopped in one afternoon collecting cash from the safest of the drivers.