Editor:
Regarding the change in school zone hours until 10 p.m.
The new school zone hour policy has all of the earmarks of a solution looking for a problem. There are hundreds of thousands of jurisdictions who think the old time zones are just fine.
This would appear to be the result of some rash knee-jerk reaction to a relatively isolated incident, or the result of some intense lobbying by an insignificant, isolated, vocal group.
Since the new policy has been adapted, I have travelled through school zones dozens of times. I have yet to see any students there from between 7 and 8 p.m., and also have yet to see any students there after 4 p.m., nevermind after 5 p.m., nevermind after 6 p.m., nevermind after 7 p.m., never mind after 8 p.m., never mind after 9 p.m. If there was lots of (or perhaps any) activity on school premises during these hours, it would certainly be a safety issue; clearly, it is not.
British Columbia already has an unenviable reputation as having the most pathetic and infantile speed zones in North America reminiscent of stories of old Southern U.S. towns that would have ridiculously low speed zones, sometimes with signs hidden, in order to trap tourists to issue fines to either pay, or help pay, for the police budgets. As B.C. is an outlier in this regard, Burnaby is now an outlier's outlier.
The shame of it all is that now that the bureaucracy of Burnaby has spent (wasted) tens of thousands of our precious tax dollars on signage etc., it will fight tooth and nail, using all means to justify this unnecessary change.
Rick Fisher, Burnaby
