What causes you to slow down when you are driving too fast? A white car in the distance? A child at the side of the road? A speed limit sign?
Members of Flin Flon’s Citizens of Patrol Program (COPP) are hoping to alter driver behaviour with a new piece of equipment called a SpeedCheck display.
A SpeedCheck display is a portable monitor that can be positioned on the side of the road to measure and display the speed of oncoming cars from up to 61 metres away.
If a vehicle drives over the posted speed limit, the numbers flash to get the driver’s attention; the greater the car’s speed, the greater the flash rate.
The Flin Flon COPP recently acquired the display sign as part of an MPI road safety initiative called Rural SpeedWatch.
According to COPP member Sinclair James, the program is intended to educate and inform, rather than prosecute, drivers.
The sign will be set up sporadically at various locations throughout the community, but only when two COPP volunteers are available to monitor it.
Volunteers will operate the machine and record the road and weather conditions, and the number of vehicles that are speeding.
COPP volunteers will not have any authority to issue tickets, though they may, like any other citizens, report dangerous drivers to the RCMP.
According to a brief distributed by James, COPP will set up the display for at least 10 hours a month between August and October.
On Thursday, August 6, five COPP members came out to see the sign set up for the first time, on Green Street near the Joe Brain Children’s Petting Zoo.
They were joined by RCMP constable Glenn Colvin, who voiced his support for the program. He noted that due to SpeedWatch in other communities, “There has been a huge decline in speeding in Southern Manitoba.”
Colvin said local drivers tend to speed on Green Street, on Highway 10, and on Highway 10A near Walmart.
In 2011, an MPI-sponsored radar program found 24 per cent of drivers were going faster than the posted limit in Flin Flon school zones.
Unless otherwise posted, urban speed in Flin Flon is 50 km/hr, 30 km/hr in school zones and 70 km/hr on the Perimeter Highway.
