Councillors push for RCMP speed enforcement on Rosetown streets

By Ian MacKay

Town councillors hope to convince the local RCMP detachment to crack down on drivers speeding in town.

“George Street is a racetrack,” councillor John Kadler said during the April 7 council meeting. Some people “drive a lot higher than 50” there, Kadler said. “That’s because it’s a good street. There’s not a whole lot of holes.”

Prompted by Mayor Trevor Hay, he recalled that someone hit his truck “and drove it into the power pole, many years ago.” He couldn’t believe that “the guy didn’t get killed,” he said. “His truck ended up a block down the street, upside down, in the middle of the street.”

The limit in town is 40 km/h except on a few roads, including the highways and Marshall Avenue.

Councillor Art Garrett initiated the discussion, saying that people had contacted him “four or five times about the speed of some vehicles ... especially where there are children.” Garrett said six children, mostly pre-schoolers, live on one side of the block where he lives.

He’d told people to get the licence plate numbers of continual speeders and “let the RCMP know,” he said. However, they want the town to “be pro-active rather than reactive,” he said.

“You can’t have ‘slow’ signs all over town,” Garrett said.

“It would help if the RCMP set up radar along the street for a few afternoons or a few days,” Hay said.

Hay later suggested that the RCMP try to enforce the local bylaw against truckers on the highway using retarder brakes late at night, after Kadler said that people told him it represented a problem on both highways.

“Do semi drivers read signs?” he wondered, noting that the bylaw was difficult for RCMP to enforce.

Jason Hunter, in his first meeting after winning the byelection, wondered what the fine is and noted that signs about triple fines in construction zones cause him to obey their speed limits.

“Personally, I think it would be hard to fine them for the use of factory-installed equipment,” public works superintendent Bob Bors noted.

The town also gets many complaints about “trains using their horns in the middle of the night, but that is a safety feature when they’re crossing intersections,” said Amanda Bors, the acting chief administrator.

Town staff have also talked to Highways Department officials about installing crosswalks in spots along Highway 7, “but they do not want to stop highway traffic,” Bob Bors said.