A speed trap on a merge lane: an abuse of power
Around noon on Feb. 11, I was merging onto Highway 40 eastbound, just east of St. Charles Blvd. There were cars ahead of and behind me, and we were all flowing at the same speed.
We were speeding up because we were entering the merge. As I was merging onto the highway, approximately 150 feet before the entrance, a police cruiser came barrelling out of its hiding place, across two lanes at 90 degrees to oncoming traffic in front of the car ahead of me. The driver ahead of me screeched to a stop, as we all did. The female officer then yelled at the car ahead of me to continue and pointed at me to pull over.
I had no idea what I had done wrong. I dutifully pulled over and the officer stuck her radar gun into my face, showing me the 99-kilometres-an-hour speed at which I was supposedly going.
I told the officer, “Of course, because I was just about to enter the highway where the speed is 100 kilometres an hour.” She told me that the speed limit on the service road is 50 kilometres an hour, which I knew.
Again I said I was merging onto the highway, not travelling along the service road. She did not want to hear anything about it and was rude and condescending.
She said I was charged with excessive speeding, doubling my fine to $628, plus 10 demerit points and an automatic on-thespot suspension of my licence for seven days. Plus this “excessive speeding” will be on my record for 10 years, without any further explanation. Needless to say, I was in shock. I am a law-abiding citizen with a fairly clean driving record. Now, I can understand if I was doing this speed in a residential area, where the law is intended to slow people down, but I was merging onto a highway from the service road on a Saturday afternoon when there was no danger. In fact the police officer, who made several cars come to a screeching halt, was far more careless, reckless and dangerous than I was merging onto the highway.
I acknowledge that technically I was in the wrong for travelling above 50 on the marked service road, but the mere fact that the police laid out a speed trap where everyone would be accelerating to enter the highway is an abuse of the speeding law. I have spoken with two lawyers who said that their offices are constantly receiving calls from people with the same complaint.
I agree with putting laws in place to keep our children and roads safe, but when speed traps are set up in places that do not assist in this objective, it is just another cash grab.
Incidentally, I now enter that merge at 50 kilometres an hour, which has proven to be far more dangerous for me and the cars around me, since they now either tailgate or whip around me on my right side.