|
speed trap on lagimodiere  A rant by: rtanchuk My girlfriend got a photo radar ticket on Lagimodiere the other day. They have construction going on near the perimiter. The day she got the ticket , there were no construction crews working , but there was a photo radar van set up there. Today she got another one and who knows how many more will follow. She drives through there every day. She does slow down to 60 km when crews are out. This is a total cash grab. The tickets are $195 each. I wonder how many people have been affected , hundreds , thousands. I understand the need to slow down for the safety of construction workers , but why would they have a van out there when there are no workers or equipment. Why , because thet're making money. She plans to fight it and if there are other drivers that this has happened to , I would like to hear from them. Safety in numbers. I forgot to mention that my girlfriend has been driving for 36 years and has never had a moving violation of any kind. She has been driving commercialy for 20 years. << Back Add a Comment Comments ( Add a Comment ) Audrey says: 2008-07-11 13:25:02 I travel the Perimeter/Lagimodiere route every day as well. Much to my dismay I received two photo radar tickets in the mail so far. I live outside the city and have not picked up my mail for a few days. I am almost afraid to go and look in fear that I will find more. My story is exactly the same, I never saw any equipment or workers at the time that I got these tickets. I am quite confident of the fact that nothing was there as I always slow down when there are workers or equipment there. It makes me irate to think that they have the right to just sit there when no lives are in danger and rack up probably close to $30000.00 in photo radar tickets. Someone told me that they had nailed around 1500 cars at the times that these traps were set up. I too plan to fight these tickets. I have never had a photo radar ticket and as a matter of fact have never had an accident. I have been driving for 33 years. My cousin had forwarded the link to me as she said it is the identical story to mine. heather says: 2008-07-14 15:05:41 I live outside the city and also travel the lagimodiere route. My story is the same as the others except I have received 3 tickets so far. In all cases, there were no workers or construction happening, all lanes were open. There had been a 60 sign when passing workers up at one point and that is what I was going by. I never noticed the radar vehicle, I have heard that it may have been a regular car. I have never had a ticket before(and have full merits)and I have been driving for about 20 years. I am also planning on fighting these tickets as so far the cost is about $600. Way more than I made that week that I received the tickets. What really bothers me is that I did not receive the first ticket for almost 2 weeks and therefore repeated the same thing over and over. I don't think it is fair to be penalized many times for 1 mistake. If anyone could give me some advice on how to fight this I would really appreciate it. Josie says: 2008-07-16 15:44:19 As of July 16, 2008 I have had 3 so far. The first was doing 81 in construction zone (with no construction going on) and was $247.00, next 80 (less speed) and amount was $278.00 (which was on July 1 HOLIDAY), then July 2 for same. I am also conserned with checking my mailbox. What shocks me is the pictures even show no sign of work. All lanes were open, no workers, no equipment....no safety concerns. I was under the impression that the posted reduced speed was for passing workers, or for lane closures that could cause safety concerns....apparently not. I am fighting all, and any more to come. I believe as with most its a money scam. Since they now have changed these zones from reading 'when passing workers' then they should have made some formal announcement. Most do not intentionally break the law, and if I would have known it was at all times, I of course would have reduced speed. I would have even reduced if there was even only one lane open..... The more people who stand up and fight these, the more the prosector will have to deal with and smarten up for future situations such as this. heather says: 2008-07-25 12:42:43 Update; I went to broadway today with my 3 tickets and plead guilty with explanation. Got a sick grumpy lady who got rid of my pricey $247 northbound ticket but insisted I had to pay the two southbound tickets(167)as there has been full construction for months in the southbound lanes. She also said there was never a 60 when passing workers sign in that area, and there was proper signage including a warning sign of reduced speed ahead. I disagreed with both of those. I had seen when passing workers sign and there wasn't a warning sign until recently.She had photos of the area but only ones with full construction going on. I tried everything and nothing worked, she said i could appeal her decision but that would cost money and I could not change my plea to not guilty and go to trial. I asked for extra time to pay and she gave me 2 months longer. I heard some others talking and alot of people were having to pay the full amounts. She said she gave me a break due to my spotless record. I cut the fine down almost half but as still upset that she was so insistant about the signs and construction and I am there almost daily. Might have been better to plead not guilty and go to trial. FYI, I was there about 2 hours and got there right after it opened. Any questions you can email me at cabingirlca@yahoo.ca gordo says: 2008-10-28 20:02:32 My wife has gotten two already for a title of over $400 so I'll be heading down to Broadway to fight them... interested to hear if anyone had better success going to trial? rtanchuk says: 2008-10-30 21:41:38 Hi, We just went to court yesterday. The pictures we had were inadmissible , because they were not taken on the day that the photo radar van snapped the picture. We didn't receive the first ticket until 10 days after. We didn't do all that bad though. We would have paid $840 , if we had paid them. We ended up paying $360. The crown offers you a half price deal if you plead guilty with an explaination . right off the bat. My girlfriend tryed that , but she insisted that the construction signs were down and the reduce speed sign was there. The judge said , because of that she had to plead not guilty and there would be 4 trials. She went through the first and lost , because of the documentation of the phot radar guy. Because of her clean driving record , it was reduced to $75 court costs. The second went the same and she paid full cost. She finally plead guilty to 3 and 4. The crown said because she wasn't wasting more of the courts time they would accept $50 on each. I don't feel like justice was done , but it reduced the amount by more than half. I still think fighting it is worth it , depending on how much you value your time. If you have 1 ticket and you get it cut in half that's great. But if you lose a half day of work , Iit kind of balances out. Personally , I think if everyone fought it , then it wouldn't be profitable for them and maybe they will scrap it as they did in BC. If you still want the pictures I have them , but I don't think it will help. Rick Anonymous says: 2008-10-31 11:57:30 I stumbled upon this site while doing some daily searches and boy I am sure glad I did. The one thing I was happy to see was there were no comments from some camera hugging super driver who calls you all A Bunch Of Whiners and that you broke the law and should just shut up and pay them. It's funny how many of those same people though change their tune when they get stung, or when they start to learn about what a sham photo radar really is. I wish I had found this site sooner as many of you could have been been helped by my site to be more successful in your defenses. If you want to learn more then visit me at; www.trafficticketguru.com I am a former Winnipeg Police Officer with 10+ years traffic experience, let me enlighten you to aspects of photo enforcement you weren't aware of. Once you realize where the majority of the money generated from your tickets ends up and how it is so obvious this is for revenue only, it will make you want to spread the word to everyone you know to fight all of these tickets. The system is designed to frustrate and inconvenience you. The goal is that since there are no demerits you will just shut up and pay it. If you go to court they will reduce your fines to keep most people from going to trial and clogging the system up. People agree because they feel their saving some money, but in reality they are just allowing this sham to continue. My ebook will be out within the next couple of weeks along with online consultations. Most tickets have a defense or an explanation. Unfortunately most people are going into the system completely blind and fail to get a positive result. Let me help you to win your case! It's time for people to put a stop to photo enforcement, it is only going to get worse. Remember, they've installed a test camera now for the diamond lanes. (To protect the safety of the Transit schedule I guess!) How long before they introduce them on right turns on reds and did you know Australia just installed the first noise camera. Check it out at; http://www.trafficticketguru.com/whereswaldo-081022.html We are adding more FREE content all the time. Larry www.trafficticketguru.com Trafficticketguru says: 2008-10-31 12:03:23 In case you missed the link, it appears this site doesn't display your text as it is typed. I will try html and see if it displays the link. Trafficticketguru says: 2008-10-31 12:04:51 Guess not! http://www.trafficticketguru.com/whereswaldo-081022.html alej says: 2009-03-17 23:06:16 if you got a ticket on lagimodiere and bishop on or about sept 29 2008.. i got a video that clearly show that the traffic signs were not setup properly also between 7:00 am and 8:30 am there was no construction worker on sight...if you need any of this to fight your ticket please right to me here please leave phone number alej says: 2009-03-17 23:07:34 if you got a ticket on lagimodiere and bishop on or about sept 29 2008.. i got a video that clearly show that the traffic signs were not setup properly also between 7:00 am and 8:30 am there was no construction worker on sight...if you need any of this to fight your ticket please Write to me here please leave phone number |
|
I think they're keeping the radar guns operating because there is construction going on along this route, and they want to make people aware that they should cut their speed until this work is done. However, this isn't the main problem with Lagimodiere, especially the stretch between Regent and the Perimeter. This part is bad because of unsynchronized lights and the failure of the city to complete the cloverleaf at the junction of 59 and 101. In fact, this failure exemplifies the bush league mentality of urban planners and road construction and maintenence experts in this city. The northeast portion of the Perimeter Highway was opened in the fall of '97 so that the logical thing to do was to finish the cloverleaf within the next year or two; i.e., logical in any other N. American city Winnipeg's size or even smaller. Not here. Instead we have this asinine arrangement where the lights at this intersection go on almost every 30 seconds so that even if the ones further south were in sync, the east-west cross traffic would throw them out of it. Meanwhile all we hear from people like the premier is how important it is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Well, what does he think a few dozen cars and trucks idling at this spot are doing---purifying the air? But this is the city that wants to add a rapid transit system. I can just imagine how well that will work.