Outsourcing of traffic police work ? ...
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Gents,
I'm not quite current on the news in Singapore, but can someone tell me what this is about ? ...
taken off ST's website ...
Cops, not wardens, should nab offenders
Sep 26, 2006
The Straits Times
I REFER to the letter "Old hand at driving booked 5 times in month" (ST, Sept 23), from Ms Koh Bee Kwang.
There are serious implications which arise from the outsourcing of policing duties by government agencies.
For the police, the matter is of even greater concern.
Firstly, it is the sacrosanct duty of the police force to prevent and detect the commission of offences.
Secondly, fines levied on summonses belong to the state and not the police.
When the detection of traffic offences is outsourced by the police, can we expect an astronomical increase in the number of summonses issued? The reasons are fairly obvious.
Unlike police officers, the motivation for these outside agencies is clearly profit and that would invariably be tied to the amount of fines which they are able to collect.
The wardens employed by these agencies are not subject to the same oath of allegiance to uphold and protect the law that the police are.
As such, they may be overzealous in the performance of their tasks and would not exercise any judicious discretion.
Their promotion and incentives will also be linked to some quotas and that puts every motorist at risk of being booked by some desperate wardens.
There is also the question about the use of the fines to pay these outside agencies to do their work.
Are the fines collected deemed to be income at the disposal of the police?
Lastly, almost everything can be outsourced. What guidelines are there to ensure that we do not end up with a situation where government agencies outsource their work and leave the taxpayers in the lurch?
The worry is that if all government agencies do this, what is going to happen?
Tan Lam Siong
WHO'S IN CHARGE?
The wardens employed by these agencies are not subject to the same oath of allegiance to uphold and protect the law that the police are.
are we outsourcing (traffic) police work to private contractors ? ...
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They've
I can tell you, the way they are catching, sooner or later it's going to defeat the purpose to make the bus lane smooth
Cos those side roads, cars coming out, they've to ensure they get out though at the expense of the moving bus having to stop, to avoid the summon
And I'm sick and tired of the ST forum letter today... Of all, they dun wanna catch cars that stop inside the yellow box
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You hit the nail right on the head.Originally posted by Fatum:Gents,
I'm not quite current on the news in Singapore, but can someone tell me what this is about ? ...
taken off ST's website ...
are we outsourcing (traffic) police work to private contractors ? ... It's the most lucrative business in singapore now. -
That is why you see a lot of those target driven personnel stopping at those place why people are most likely to make mistakes.
I.E... The most common place would be along orchard road between wisma and lucky plaza where people turn too early into the bus lane. -
a conspiracy...by LTA who draws the road marking and the TP warden to take down yr car plate numbers...Originally posted by caleb_chiang:That is why you see a lot of those target driven personnel stopping at those place why people are most likely to make mistakes.
I.E... The most common place would be along orchard road between wisma and lucky plaza where people turn too early into the bus lane. -
wtf ... how long has this been going on ? .... -
Since the 2005 budget.Originally posted by Fatum:wtf ... how long has this been going on ? .... -
If you read yesterday's news, about high erp charges unable to ease traffic congestion, that one you really got to laugh. It doesn't take a scientist to figure that one out.
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There is only so many roads in singapore. Put erp everywhere will never ease the jams. Not when the pre-election COE drop has increase the number of cars on the road. erp is a money making machine in the first place. Unless we turn to driving boats to work... the erp is not going to ease any traffic conditions. Besides, the traffic conditions here is not as bad as China or Taiwan. And neither China or Taiwan implemented the ERP system.
Last week, outsource traffic wardens booked a bunch of pedestrians for jay walking along Jalan Eunos. To me, LTA failed to provide a good pedestrian crossing but in the end, it becomes the pedestrian fault loh... If anyone write in to LTA, you will experience the ability to taichi and the condescending attitude at the same time.
the info system is also a waste of money. Every day I see at Jalan Eunos turning into PIE, reach Jurong: 11 minutes, reach Changi 5 mins, Clementi 6 mins. Is LTA telling us to drive fighter jets or telling us to drive our cars at 250km/hr or is LTA really ignorant of the road conditions? -
I don't get the print edition ... I have only the scraps they throw onto their website ...Originally posted by ditzy:If you read yesterday's news, about high erp charges unable to ease traffic congestion, that one you really got to laugh. It doesn't take a scientist to figure that one out. -
I really disapprove of outsourcing traffic police work to private contractors. I'd seen it in London, where they also have a form of ERP system, and it just doesn't work. The private contractors in London are profit-driven, and they are paid a certain percentage of whatever fines they manage to net, so they tend to camp out at places where it's easy to catch offenders, and they tend to be very quick and harsh in issuing summons. This is just not the way to go for Singapore.
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I agree ! ...
I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of outsourcing such work to private concerns .... especially if it's profit driven .....
if there's a quota of sorts and a pressure to profit, wouldn't there be an opening to corruption too ? ....
it's a step backward, I wonder which idiot thought of it ... -
Probably some scholar up there who thinks numbers and formulas are solution to everyday things.Originally posted by Fatum:I agree ! ...
I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of outsourcing such work to private concerns .... especially if it's profit driven .....
if there's a quota of sorts and a pressure to profit, wouldn't there be an opening to corruption too ? ....
it's a step backward, I wonder which idiot thought of it ... -
wonder what kind of salaries these wardens are drawing ? if it's like commission based, their pay must be stratospheric man !!
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every public service must also make money. maybe missionaries for hire in future for saf?
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The wardens' pay is likely to be crap, like 1k+. The ones who are benefiting will be those at the top.Originally posted by Elodan:wonder what kind of salaries these wardens are drawing ? if it's like commission based, their pay must be stratospheric man !!
This is a case of outsourcing gone overboard. What's next? I wonder.
Cost minimisation and profit maximisation to the exclusion of everything else. -
It's not new...policing of parking offences has been outsourced in UK for a long time..Originally posted by Fatum:I agree ! ...
I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of outsourcing such work to private concerns .... especially if it's profit driven .....
if there's a quota of sorts and a pressure to profit, wouldn't there be an opening to corruption too ? ....
it's a step backward, I wonder which idiot thought of it ... -
If you look carefully at what they're doing with the ERP, one can argue it is a form of corruption too. It does not alleviate congestion at all, but it generates lots of revenue so they continue building them. If they were serious about using it to solve the congestion problem they'd have decided to abolish the damned thing by now because it is not working.Originally posted by Fatum:I agree ! ...
I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of outsourcing such work to private concerns .... especially if it's profit driven .....
if there's a quota of sorts and a pressure to profit, wouldn't there be an opening to corruption too ? ....
it's a step backward, I wonder which idiot thought of it ... -
hahaha... yeah IR would not be a reality, Smoking should be non-existant except in exam halls, Drinking should be disallowed, Wh0ring should not be legalized or even exists to taint our streets.Originally posted by av98m:If you look carefully at what they're doing with the ERP, one can argue it is a form of corruption too. It does not alleviate congestion at all, but it generates lots of revenue so they continue building them. If they were serious about using it to solve the congestion problem they'd have decided to abolish the damned thing by now because it is not working.
To me, the current system is not about solving problems for the people. Its about making more profit at all cost. -
then something must be seriously wrong when we start apeing the wrong things from people, eh ? ....Originally posted by oxford mushroom:It's not new...policing of parking offences has been outsourced in UK for a long time..
ERP is an european invention too btw .... -
Ever noticed that there're many more cars on the roads these days and in turn, lots of traffic jams. COE used to be really expensive but it has gone down a fair bit. The government knows that jams and cars are inevitable. ERP may put off some people from driving, but the majority of us will still drive. ERP is a good source of revenue for the government for doing nothing. Imagine the amount of vehicles passing thru the ERP gantries around Sg each day. If they are serious in controlling the amount of traffic, more drastic measures would have been in place. Do you see any? money makes the world go roundOriginally posted by mistyblue:There is only so many roads in singapore. Put erp everywhere will never ease the jams. Not when the pre-election COE drop has increase the number of cars on the road. erp is a money making machine in the first place. Unless we turn to driving boats to work... the erp is not going to ease any traffic conditions. Besides, the traffic conditions here is not as bad as China or Taiwan. And neither China or Taiwan implemented the ERP system.
Last week, outsource traffic wardens booked a bunch of pedestrians for jay walking along Jalan Eunos. To me, LTA failed to provide a good pedestrian crossing but in the end, it becomes the pedestrian fault loh... If anyone write in to LTA, you will experience the ability to taichi and the condescending attitude at the same time.
the info system is also a waste of money. Every day I see at Jalan Eunos turning into PIE, reach Jurong: 11 minutes, reach Changi 5 mins, Clementi 6 mins. Is LTA telling us to drive fighter jets or telling us to drive our cars at 250km/hr or is LTA really ignorant of the road conditions? -
I wouldn't be surprised to see a few wardens with injuries soon, with their incessent harassment of people at certain profitable places.
These wardens are not covered by a warrant to enforce the law of the land, they are just administrative officers.. -
profits ! ...
there is something seriously wrong when our public transportation and roads systems are driven by profits ! .... -
Actually, ERP has been good for me:
(1) Before ERP, I used to pay annual road tax of around S$2000 for a 2.0 litre car. Now, I pay around S$1500 per year....plus I don't drive into town often, so I've actually saved a bit.
(2) Its really convenient for some carparks - "ERP-like parking". No need to tear coupons, no need to line up to pay, no need to kenah rain.
What really bothers me are the bus lanes.
Bus Lanes might have been a good concept and might have served its purpose years ago, but its getting to be a headache. Try coming out of a side road onto a crowded main road with bus lanes. You can't use the first lane (cos its a buslane) and you can't get to the second lane (cos its full) and you get this idiot behind you honking non-stop, showing you the finger, etc. You go you die. You don't go you also die.
And try exiting a mainroad with buslane, into a side road. You have to travel on the second lane, then when the exit is near, you suddenly have to cut through the bus lane and exit.
Yes, I know that buslanes have dotted lines (tolerance zones for entering/exiting), but they don't always work. Some dotted line parts are so short they're like a joke.
And now, with our outsourced talents with digital cams on tripods everywhere....there's no chance to cheat on buslanes. You might even get one overzealous guy who wants to score points, who will take your picture even if one of your vehicle's wheel scrapes against the buslane. Who knows? -
wait a minute ... you're actually paying less now ? ...
hmmmmm ..........
anyone in the same shoes too ? ...