The police information service in the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, has a blog called Cops & Bloggers -- tagged Saskatoon Police Service Blog -- which contains some interesting articles. A case in point is one written by Kelsie Fraser, the Social Media / Media Relations Specialist at Saskatoon Police Service, titled They did WHAT behind the wheel?!.
In that post Ms. Fraser advises readers in Saskatoon of a power available to them to report traffic law infractions they see. Excerpt:
The horror stories that we hear about behind the wheel and witness on a daily basis cause us to shake our heads too. The only difference is that we’re equipped with a ticket book, and we have the authority to use it. I know I’ve seen plenty of people on social media who wish they were equipped with the same book and had the same authority on their morning and afternoon commutes.
Well, I’m here to tell you that while you may not have the ticket book, I’ve found many people don’t know they have DO ability to report traffic infractions the same as they have the ability to report a break and enter, an assault, or a robbery. ...
All you need to do is come to the Service Centre at Police Headquarters and leave a written witness statement for us to get started.
**Note that a license plate is imperative to an investigation as a starting point.
It's easy to foresee a potential problem. Assume a citizen files the witness statement, a ticket is issued, but the witness failed to show up at court to testify. In that case everyone's time was wasted. The citizen should then be eligible for an arrest warrant for making a false report.
But another more frustrating problem would be for the citizen to file the witness statement with all the necessary information, then nothing happens. That's when the witness's ire shifts from the original traffic law breaker to the police. It would be interesting to know what percentage of citizen reports in Saskatoon actually resulted in traffic tickets.
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