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FYI: I've spent 5 years studying the evolution of the Canadian dialects of English and French.

It's odd the English and French show so much hostility based on Language, when the French are largley responsible for the evolution of the language to what it is today.

Quebec French is substantially different in pronunciation and vocabulary, though easily mutually comprehensible, with the French of the Académie française. This is due to the long history of French in Canada and the fact that French immigrants to Canada kept speaking the French of the Ancien Régime while in France the French revolution led to the standardization of bourgeois Parisian French.

>They may indeed be a nuisance. However, photo radar was very effective at keeping the speed down on the 401.

Bullshit.

It was highly ineffective. To the extreme. A light breeze would have done better than those cameras.

Also, the minority of accidents are caused by speeding.

HAND! :-)

>Where I live [Ottawa, Ontario]. Many drivers "slide" through stop lines [specially in residential areas where kids and such walk], they speed, merge without signaling, change langes inappropriate [many seem to think you cutoff people instead of going behind], etc.

Let's see the amount of accidents each of these cause in our province:

Ignoring traffic controls (ie: stop signs/lines/whatever) - 4%
Speeding - 1%
Failing to signal / inappropriate lane changes: 3%

Grand total: Accidents reduced by an absolute maximum of 8%. In fact, if it works as well as the photoradar blitz, accidents would be reduced by 0.5%. Somewhat less effective than the war on drugs. Well, a lot more than just "somewhat" less effective...

>Personally I think people rolling through stop lines should be fined 500$. I think speeders should have their license revoked. If the cops spent a day doing a traffic blitz they could probably catch a few hundred people [town of 50K here...] easy.

Personally, I think, as the stats suggest, there should be an enforced "dangerous conditions" speed (7% of crashes). Clearly driving when the weather is good is simply not a problem for Ontarians.

Also helpful would be proper patrolling of yeild signs (10% of crashes), and making it easier to arrest people for following too close (7% of crashes). I'd suggest a law about losing control of a vehicle (8% of crashes), but I think it's usually too late when that happens, anyways.

Technically, it should be illegal to drive properly (45% of crashes), but that's just plain silly.

I also think that speeds should be increased (the amount of people's lives that could be saved by ambulances being able to get to their destinations faster [from less traffic being on the roads] likely outstrips the "risks", which are so small they likely fall within the possible mistake zone of the statistics).

>Similarly, make piracy a huge penalty [e.g. compute ceased, fined 1000$ or etc] and blitz every so often.

Great. So you want to deny access to computers for piracy? Are you sure you've never taped a Hockey game? Do you realize this means offenders would have to be denied their right to use a phone? Do you realize that would mean the government would have to continue to support an extremely expensive and outmoded paper-based infrastructure?

Basically, you'll end up paying for their crimes.

Which reminds me, $1,000 would be a bargain if that's what it really was. In fact, it's usually more around the $100 - $200,000 range. A lot of pirate BBS sysops lost their homes, despite having, at best, maybe $20,000 of pirated software on their machines.

>If you report a pirate [who is convicted] you get x % of the fines. Get the geeks to hunt the pirates!

Yes, let's move from being a socialist country to being a dictatorship! You do realize that the method of control you suggest was the very most popular form of control used during Hitler's regime, right (it's simply a fact -- I'm not invoking Godwin's law here)? And that it was used as a control measure by the soviet union until the cold war was over?

Since we're making up laws to suit ourselves, though, let's outlaw those separate schools. I'm tired of paying for children to be brain damaged, and taught to violate our laws. And it's time to get rid of the CRTC (who make it illegal to have multicultural TV -- only Canadian monoculture is easily available) -- AND I'm tired of having these signals beamed at my house from space and not being able to manipulate them at will. It should be my right to do with any signals being sent to me, against my will, as I wish.

1% of accidents are reported as having been caused by speeding -- and the few that are caused by such driving are usually caused by people doing positively insane speeds (like 220 km/h on a 50 km/h road).

Data. (BTW: "Driving too fast for conditions" in Ontario means doing 40 km/h on a 60 km/h road when the entire road is iced over, it does NOT indicate driving above the speed limit).

I'm sure someone can find me some statistics that show that speeding has been used to avoid over 1% of all accidents. I'm pretty sure Young Drivers even mentioned that once...

And there's Dildo Newfoundland. I guess Climax Michigan would be SOL too.

Why in the hell would I go to Wawa for milk, instead of the local convenience store? It's not like I have a goose fetish or anything...

You americans have strange ideas.

See it here.