Last Sunday I happened to catch part of the Roy Green Show on CJOB radio and heard a apart of an interesting segment.  The host of the show, Roy Green voiced his opinion about police “fishing holes” and I thought that even though I was not able to call into the show, I thought that I may have something to offer for his consideration.

The segment in blue type is part of Roy’s website  that offers you a snapshot of his program.

Reaction to last weekend’s segment on police fishing holes

much reaction to my challenging police ‘fishing holes’ on major highways were cruisers hide in the weeds looking to pick off ‘convenient’ drivers exceeding the speed limit.
My argument was (and remains) against these fishing holes. A mobile cruiser on the highway will do more good in assisting traffic flow than two or three cruisers parked in the weeds at the bottom of a hill on a four lane divided major highway.
I see these fishing holes as largely tax revenue generating efforts and while a retired Edmonton police officer agreed largely with my position, callers and listeners sending email to roy@roygreenshow.com mostly took exception with my view.
I received an email from a police officer who was on traffic duty while the show was on the air and heard a good portion of the segment. He too disagrees and sent email on the issue. I’ve invited the officer to be on one of this weekend’s shows and share his thoughts. This won’t be confrontational, but I’m convinced fishing holes exist and are there to generate income perhaps even more than for safety reasons.
Will share an experience about a sitatution in Ontario where I challenged a speeding ticket because it was an obvious fishing hole. The Ontario government attorney’s response to my challenge was interesting to say the least.
What’s also interesting is the level of interest and passion I’ve heard and read on this topic.

My Traffic Ticket Tip and email to Mr. Green:

Dear Roy,

I was fortunate enough to catch the last part of your show about police fishing holes and I was pleased that the two officers who spoke to you on air were able to sway your opinion slightly. I wanted to offer you several points for your consideration, based on my observations and experiences that have seen as a trained Radar Operator, Breathalyser Technician and a Traffic Collision Analyst. I have had a few positive experiences out on the roads but have been heartbreaking experiences at accident scenes that have been caused by poor driving decisions.

We will not find one person in this world who would be pleased to get a traffic ticket.  The” fishing hole” or place where officers “hide out in the weeds” may be a fair description of areas where police park to monitor traffic speeds on our roads.  Other people call them “traps.”  In a true sense of a “trap” police would have to lure in or entice or tempt a driver to exceed the speed limit or commit a traffic offence.  To the best of my knowledge, the situation that you take exception to, would not have police enticing drivers to apply more pressure to the gas pedal.  Every driver decides on their own, how fast that they are to be traveling.  If the speed limit is 100, with all things being equal, drivers should be driving at 100 or slower depending on road conditions.  I have listened to many Traffic Court Judges  remind people that  the posted speed is a maximum speed and that you are still speeding if you drive faster than the limit to pass someone, for example.  The drivers who are driving at the speed limit and not having any other reasons for a police to stop them will drive by the fishing hole without a second look from the officers.

If a driver chooses on his own accord to exceed the speed limit by 5, 10 or how many ever clicks that he believes that he is immune from getting a ticket, this is his choice and he may find that he will be stopped by police.  Depending on situations, and conditions, officers may slide up or down their level of tolerance that they may afford drivers who may have decided to take certain liberties with their speeds.  I am not able to advise anyone that there is a safe number for those who are inclined to take those liberties because I do not want to misinform any person.  The traffic court will be looking at what is the posted speed limit.

I would bet that every driver who knew that his speed was being monitored by the police would keep to the speed limit, or slightly above or below the speed limit.  This would allow him to go merrily about his way and his licence and wallet would not be impacted by a ticket. However, when a driver believes that there is not a police presence and he will not be monitored, then there may be no limit to what speed the driver may be tempted to drive. Performing duties while not being completely visible on the roadway is the simplest way that I know of to monitor traffic that is traveling at the speed that drivers feel safe to drive at. This is why we take advantage of areas that may give us cover to do our jobs.   We can use unmarked or other non traditional vehicles to attempt to monitor drivers but due to budget and manpower constraints these methods may not be an option to police.  As an example of what one driver felt was a safe, I attach a link to a video that was recently posted where a motorcycle is driven at up to 300 kph.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/04/16/bc-speeding-motorcycle-video.html

Most drivers will drive near the speed limit, but I have seen where 30 % or more of the ticketed drivers are driving 30 clicks or more over the speed limit.

When you say that you believe that Police would be better managing the speeds by having a mobile patrol car marshaling traffic up and down the roadways in order to keep speeds reasonable I would like to share with you what I have seen when this happens. The marshaling temporarily slows traffic but causes bunches of vehicles that cause a moving traffic jam at the speed limit. Reluctantly,  drivers toe this line but this keeps drivers anxious to get moving at higher speeds.  Drivers will come up the group of cars following the police and stay in line until the police happen to pull off the road and then everyone is off to the races.  Speeds go up and until the pack spreads out, there are chances that the more aggressive drivers will pressure other slower drivers so that the fastest can be the fastest.  I have seen this situation happen primarily on the weekends where good volumes of traffic are wanting to travel to or from cottage country at peak weekend times or on holidays.  During these times, it was unsafe for police to do radar because the concentration of all the vehicles would not allow us to safely integrate into the high volumes of traffic.  At times, I have marshaled traffic as described as it was the only way to keep a semblance of normalcy to the traffic.  You would not believe it but I have been driving a marked RCMP car in the passing lane with a hundred or so vehicles moving along with me two by two on the double lanes of the Trans Canada Highway and have had a car pass us all at high speed on the shoulder.  There have been cars that have ended up in the ditch after cooler lids have blown out of a pickup box and people have panicked and hit the ditch because there was not enough time or space to properly avoid the debris.  I shudder to think of all of the close calls that I have seen.

Police officers who are watching their radar equipment see a car’s speed when they are being monitored be whatever the driver feels “safe” driving  and suddenly the speed drops  off to a legal speed once the police presence is detected.  The speed will remain normal until the driver passes the police car and believes he is “safe” to resume the higher than posted speed limit.  Police just switch the radar set to a rear facing setting where they can watch the driver’s speed increase as he gets farther away from the police car.  I believe that this was explained to you as a”halo effect” of a police presence on the road.

Your described “fishing holes,”  exist in areas where police know that there is a tendency to have a reasonable number of speeders that travel at significant speeds over the speed limit.  We attempt to cull those speeders out of the herd of normally driving cars.  My preferred spots gave me a reasonable area of cover to monitor cars speeds and allow me for a good safe area to be able to get out and after the speeders and pull them over.  When dealing with highway speed traffic, safety is the main consideration for me primarily as I have a family to get home to after the end of my shift.  Good fishing holes give us a good cover, a good pursuit zone to catch up to the speeders and a good safe landing spot where the drivers would normally pull over to the shoulder of the road.

When you may call a speeder as “convenient “ to be picked off by radar then I would just like to let you know that it is our job to attempt to keep our roads safe.  Most traffic officers would love to be able to write up the dangerously high speeds but this is just not possible.  It is my experience that if we are writing tickets for every 15 or 20 click speeder we would miss many of the high flyers.  If we are using fishing hole vernacular, we are wanting to land the master angler award clients instead of the ordinary client.

The traffic officer is not just looking for speeders.  At any given time, officers may have a look out for suspicious vehicles that may be involved in any type of crime.  We are looking into vehicles for people who are not buckled in, or for kids that may be bouncing around the vehicles.  We are looking for drivers and passengers who are in a mobile party mode and are drinking or stunting.  We are looking for vehicles that may have parts dragging or other potentially dangerous situations.  We are looking for drivers that are obviously too young to be driving.  We are looking for a wide variety of situations that may be a hazard to the people on the road that may not be obvious to the driver or anyone else.

At one point in time, police officers looked at vehicles that are driving at 20 clicks over or 20 clicks under the speed limit as a possible indication of impairment.  Traffic officers stop impaired drivers, traveling criminals, drug couriers and people who are in panic mode because they are fleeing from possible crimes that have not been reported yet.  There is intelligence that is gathered as far as who is traveling with whom and who has warrants and suspended driving privileges.

Sadly, there are people who have learned that there are huge amounts of revenue can be generated though the use of fines and sanctions.  Up to now I have only mentioned the police officer and not said a word about traffic camera systems.  We are not able to have a police officer every so many miles up and down the countryside to protect drivers from themselves and their bad driving decisions.  In the past years, the fines have gone up rapidly and I have no doubt that the fines can cause financial hardships for many people.  There is a segment of the Canadian population that have never had a traffic ticket and will tell you that it is not difficult to keep your driving record clean.  The simple truth is that people who get tickets are people who are breaking the rules of the road.  A little bit of simple knowledge, common sense, discipline and good luck can keep people ticket free.  I bet that I may be able to get you to admit that there may have been once in your life that you may have noticed that cop at the last minute and knew that your goose was cooked because you may have done something that merited a ticket.   Ok, so I will not put you in that spot, but I will admit that I have had that happen and will immediately look in my rear view mirror and be praying “keep going, keep going, keep going, don’t turn around, keep going… yes, yes, yes, that was close!” Can you identify with my experience?  Thank you.

At any given time, a good driver may have a lapse of concentration that may lead to more pressure on the accelerator that may lead to a police experience and a ticket and a talking to.  Traffic tickets suck and plainly no one likes to spend money on traffic fines.  I used to think that I would like to write traffic tickets all day long in minus 40 degrees rather than be sliding anyone into a body bag.  And that is a reality that people are not really conscious of.  A moment of inattention can cost you your life.  Losing a friend or a parent or a child REALLY SUCKS!  Every day there are people who lose their lives on our roadways due to any number of reasons.  As a society we flip over those pages, or glaze over or change the channel when the media covers the issues of deaths and impaired driving.  And that is really sad.

Roy, in my life I grew up in a small Manitoban town where the garage was right on the way to the school from my home.  Like every rubbernecker on the road, I remember looking at the wrecks.  I took a closer look as I was curious, even at a young age.  I could see the varying amounts of blood and the damage.  My mom was a nurse at the local hospital; my dad ran the local ambulance service and funeral home.   I know the truths that other people do not want to see or acknowledge.

Since I retired from police work, I have started a blog at http://www.MyTrafficTicketTips.com

At this site I try to educate people one by one about avoiding traffic tickets and driving properly and consistently making good life choices while driving. I use the traffic ticket angle because no one wants to pay any of their hard earned $$$ on traffic tickets.  People can identify with the pain of paying for a ticket but they do not want to face the possibility that they are making life changing decisions when they are breaking the rules of the road.  I am working on an eBook to help people use strategies that can keep them engaged on the roadway and thinking about how they are driving.  I truly believe that if you drive properly you will avoid traffic tickets and come home to family safe and sound every night.

Roy, I hope that you can hear my perspective about fishing holes and the such. I have heard you intelligently banter about all sorts of subjects on the radio and know that the radio lets all of us learn a little something every day.  I hope that you may take to your heart my words and use them in your life to keep you and yours safe.  I end every blog at my website the following way.

Drive safely,

Gord