Broken speed guns
No apprehension; 13,049 vehicular accidents in 11 months recorded
NOT a single apprehension for violation of speed limit in Davao City has been recorded following the damage of four speed guns since December 2016.
Davao City Police Office–Traffic Group (DCPO-TG) chief Police Superintendent Ernesto Castillo said yesterday that the absence of speed guns keeps them from apprehending speed limit violators when their four gadgets provided by the Land Transportation Office (LTO) were damaged.
Both LTO and TG are currently operating without speed guns.
“We had no apprehension, zero, but we had many violators as seen in the vehicular incidents,” he said.
Castillo said the damage was caused by the speed gun’s age and could no longer be recalibrated. These are now subject for replacement to accurately measure speed limit.
He added that last March, they have already requested the city government of Davao a total of five speed guns but they are still waiting for the response. He, however, was quick to add that there are already positive developments in their request.
“Kung walang speed gun maraming abusadong driver lalo na alam nila na wala tayong speed gun,” he said.
Castillo said what they are doing now is
just observing the speed of the vehicle.
“Ang ginagawa lang natin is tinitignan natin yong sasakyan kung nagawave siya hinuhuli natin. Yong naga overtake then swerving three times, hinuhuli natin,” he said.
He said that each speed gun will cost around P500,000.
The five devices, he added, are already enough to cover the city’s speed limit implementation.
If this will be realized, he said, they will form five teams to cover different areas in Davao City including Diversion Road, south, north and even the inner areas in the city.
“There are five speed guns, five teams will conduct speed gun operations,” he said.
Base on their data, there are a total of 13,049 vehicular incidents from January to November this year, with an increase of 17.11 percent compared to last year’s data at 15,742. These include human error, road effect, vehicle defect and other causes.
In 2016, TG was able to apprehend 6,947 speed limit violators. JCR