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Edmonton politicians and traffic safety officials have embraced Vision Zero, a 10-year plan to cut traffic fatalities and major collisions to zero. It’s an excellent and much-needed commitment and some progress is being made. For example, Coun. Bev Esslinger held a news conference Tuesday, one year into the campaign, to trumpet useful elements of the program, such as 15 new turn-on-the-arrow-only left turn signals, which all but eliminate collisions at formerly iffy intersections.

Such a measure will save lives, but it’s not enough because when it comes to traffic enforcement, Edmonton is on the wrong path. So long as the city’s ongoing and intense emphasis on photo radar is our main thrust, we’re not going to hit our safety goals.

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Photo radar is no cure-all. If you don’t believe me, perhaps you’ll listen to Mike Steneker, 59, who was an RCMP officer for 32 years, two of them patrolling Highway 2 around Leduc.

“Photo radar does not make the roads safer,” Steneker says. “Speed is just easy to enforce compared to the real culprits.”

During his time on highway patrol, speed was seen by some at RCMP HQ as the major killer on our roads, but when Steneker and his partner dug into collision reports over a 10-year period in the Leduc area, they found not one traffic injury could be blamed on speed. Instead, injuries and deaths were caused by distracted driving, impaired driving, drivers merging too slowly, improper maintenance of cars and trucks, folks not wearing seat belts, and drivers parked at the side of the road.