Police fine 90 jaywalkers during morning commute

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Hammertime

Calgary is way over-policed. It's the only place I've lived where normal every day citizens tighten up and put their guard up when police are nearby. That shouldn't be the case in a free society.

Only because I am texting while doing my makeup and eating a McMuffin while doing 90kph in the left lane on Deerfoot.

[FlamesAddiction]

When I was in Lethbridge, I was in traffic court fighting a ticket and the place was filled with people fighting jaywalking tickets. The judge was really frustrated over it, gave the police crap for wasting time and let everyone off without paying. It was pretty funny actually to see the judge cut down the Lethbridge police like that in front of everyone.

Originally Posted by Hammertime

Calgary is way over-policed. It's the only place I've lived where normal every day citizens tighten up and put their guard up when police are nearby. That shouldn't be the case in a free society.

Riiight. That would explain one of North Americas highest approval ratings. Makes total sense.

[Rerun]

Good for the CPS. What the jaywalkers are doing is extremely dangerous. I hope the CPS continues doing this. God forbid someone gets hit by a vehicle and is seriously injured because they are walking down the middle of a traffic lane in the street.

[Flash Walken]

Talk about adding some fuel to the CPS are overfunded argument.

Kermit has a great post in here. Just give people a warning and show them the potential danger of their actions.

If they are still being obtuse about it and risk the lives of themselves or others, then intervene with a fine.

It's like the city adding a school zone sign and on a tuesday and positioning officers waiting to ticket on Wednesday morning.

Serve the "public good", not the letter of the law, and you'll have a better functioning society.

I would be appealing the hell out of any ticket I got for that.

[Burninator]

I saw a woman pushing a stroller down that road.

So BS that they are allowed to close a sidewalk though. I hope it's only temporary for the demo of the building and when that's over they put a sidewalk back in. It's annoying that they have also cut in the ctrain platform in half too.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by fotze

I think its more the appearance that the city bends over forward for the construction/new builds and fatas over the the rest of us who get no discernible benefit from it.

i.e. thousands of people have to tack on an additional 5 minutes each way for their commute because the city chooses to save the construction company $10k on a temporary sidewalk build. Then they ticket people to make money.

That being said do the people with the vests that work for the construction company actually have legal power to direct traffic? i.e. when they start directing traffic can I just (safely) ignore it? Annoying being forced to wait at a light for 10 minutes because they need to move a metal thing in the middle of rush hour. Fata your deadlines, they are not mine.

Funny, this is two externality posts on this forum in a couple of days.

If you can afford to build a skyscraper in Calgary, you can afford to construct the temporary infrastructure around the construction site to keep the citizens of the city safe.

I'm sure, at one point, those overhead thingies that are supposed to protect you from falling debris were 'too costly' or 'time consuming' or 'unnecessary' as well.

A few years ago, I spent half a day watching skyscraper construction in London. I know, I know, different culture with different demands in a different city yadda yadda, but, the amount of effort that went into minimizing negative effects on the surrounding non-building site were incredible.

Then you walk around downtown Calgary and it's like Beirut in some places.

[tknez16]

I work by here and I'm always shocked at the number of people who walk down that stretch. It's not like that's a long light to wait and cross to a real sidewalk.

I agree with people here that say the construction company shouldn't be allowed to close that sidewalk. It was always super busy when there was one. Worse, though, is the closure (and demolition) of the walkway behind the train station. You have to walk through crowds of people on the platform to get down the block. I've almost walked into people plenty of times, and I'm always worried someone will get bumped off the platform when it's crowded. Which is often.

[Addick]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

Saying you have to cross a street and are too lazy to do it, doesn't seem like a good excuse to me. I just don't see what's so difficult about walking on sidewalks, and in a crosswalk when the indicator says it's allowable. It might save you 30 seconds, but there will be another light/bus/train in a few minutes.

One of the issues with jaywalking is that it is often not as dangerous or unsafe as its detractors claim.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Talk about adding some fuel to the CPS are overfunded argument.

Kermit has a great post in here. Just give people a warning and show them the potential danger of their actions.

If they are still being obtuse about it and risk the lives of themselves or others, then intervene with a fine.

It's like the city adding a school zone sign and on a tuesday and positioning officers waiting to ticket on Wednesday morning.

Serve the "public good", not the letter of the law, and you'll have a better functioning society.

I would be appealing the hell out of any ticket I got for that.

I'm sorry but I can't agree with this.

First, if you're walking south to north there, you can't see traffic coming as it's a one-way. You want to turn people around and show them that traffic is heading right at them? If I'm walking ON THE ROAD, I shouldn't need a warning to know that it's dangerous. I shouldn't need a warning to know that I'm impeding traffic. They are trying to serve the public good as they had received complaints about the jaywalking there and that's the reason they started on the initiative.

For the people who were complaining about the extra time it takes the pedestrians, what about the extra time that traffic now takes to merge another lane because the third lane is full of pedestrians? We all know how well Calgarians merge, right?

Second, where did you want the contractors to park, fotze? Wouldn't it be better for them to park on site where they have quick and easy access to their tools or would you rather they park a block away so every time they needed something, it's 10 extra minutes to get it?

I'm sorry, I don't feel bad for the 90 people who got ticketed. I hope that every ticket stands and I hope that they get another 100 people today.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Addick

One of the issues with jaywalking is that it is often not as dangerous or unsafe as its detractors claim.

That is for crossing the road, not walking down the road in a lane.

In addition, if motorists quit stopping for jaywalkers, it would be much more dangerous for them. We have a culture in Canada that the second someone steps into the road regardless of where it is, vehicles should stop. As such, yeah, it's fairly safe for jaywalkers here. Travel to Mexico and take the same attitude; you'll wind up in a hospital.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Hammertime

Calgary is way over-policed. It's the only place I've lived where normal every day citizens tighten up and put their guard up when police are nearby. That shouldn't be the case in a free society.

1. I don't really notice this
2. Where else have you lived? Mayberry?

I would have preferred one cop at the start of the stretch preventing them from doing it instead of letting them walk it and then writing them up.

[tknez16]

Originally Posted by FireFly

That is for crossing the road, not walking down the road in a lane.

In addition, if motorists quit stopping for jaywalkers, it would be much more dangerous for them. We have a culture in Canada that the second someone steps into the road regardless of where it is, vehicles should stop. As such, yeah, it's fairly safe for jaywalkers here. Travel to Mexico and take the same attitude; you'll wind up in a hospital.

I wouldn't say in Canada. Having grown up out east I can say that is definitely not the case there. Calgary is the only place I've really noticed it.

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Talk about adding some fuel to the CPS are overfunded argument.

Kermit has a great post in here. Just give people a warning and show them the potential danger of their actions.

If they are still being obtuse about it and risk the lives of themselves or others, then intervene with a fine.

It's like the city adding a school zone sign and on a tuesday and positioning officers waiting to ticket on Wednesday morning.

Serve the "public good", not the letter of the law, and you'll have a better functioning society.

I would be appealing the hell out of any ticket I got for that.

The warning was given. It's in the 7 signs that have the word closed on it, 5 barriers, and 7 cones.

It's completely different than changing a school zone. With a change like that there is a bunch of signage before hand and during warning of the change. It's very similar to what happened here, as there was lots of signage.

These people were illegally walking down a lane of traffic, and blocking cars, when there is a sidewalk 20 feet away. I don't feel sorry for them at all. They knowingly did this to themselves, because they were lazy. If you don't like the law, that's fine, but take steps to change it. If you know the law, and choose to break it, you run the risk of suffering consequences. Speeding, jaywalking, not paying for parking, not stopping at a stop sign, running a red light, biking without a helmet, etc. are all laws that you can be fined for, and there are very easy solutions to not get fined. I've never understood the rationale to people being upset for being fined, for knowingly breaking the law.

[Raekwon]

Originally Posted by nik-

1. I don't really notice this
2. Where else have you lived? Mayberry?

I would have preferred one cop at the start of the stretch preventing them from doing it instead of letting them walk it and then writing them up.

Why would we pay a police officer to stop people from doing what the giant sign says not to do?

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Raekwon

Why would we pay a police officer to stop people from doing what the giant sign says not to do?

Because the intent of police is to protect the public, and preventing 90 people from walking down the street is exactly that. Regardless of whether there are signs there.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by nik-

Because the intent of police is to protect the public, and preventing 90 people from walking down the street is exactly that. Regardless of whether there are signs there.

To Serve and Protect.

They are serving my interests by keeping jackasses from walking in the road.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by nik-

Because the intent of police is to protect the public, and preventing 90 people from walking down the street is exactly that. Regardless of whether there are signs there.

See I disagree. The signs are obvious, the offence is obvious. Put the officer at the end and hand out tickets.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

The warning was given. It's in the 7 signs that have the word closed on it, 5 barriers, and 7 cones.

It's completely different than changing a school zone. With a change like that there is a bunch of signage before hand and during warning of the change. It's very similar to what happened here, as there was lots of signage.

These people were illegally walking down a lane of traffic, and blocking cars, when there is a sidewalk 20 feet away. I don't feel sorry for them at all. They knowingly did this to themselves, because they were lazy. If you don't like the law, that's fine, but take steps to change it. If you know the law, and choose to break it, you run the risk of suffering consequences. Speeding, jaywalking, not paying for parking, not stopping at a stop sign, running a red light, biking without a helmet, etc. are all laws that you can be fined for, and there are very easy solutions to not get fined. I've never understood the rationale to people being upset for being fined, for knowingly breaking the law.

hmm, effective counter point.

[nik-]

I'm not too miffed that they gave out tickets. I just would have preferred they did one officer doing prevention if it was becoming a problem instead of multiple officers giving out tickets.