Mairin’s memory drives radar site
May 16, 2001 by Mark Wilson
Police and provincial officials have broken their usual rules in locating a photo-radar van to honour the memory of a young Richmond woman.
Mairin Johnston was killed in 1994, one day after her 18th birthday, at the south end of Boundary Road when her boyfriend lost control of his car while doing 160 kilometres an hour down a steep hill.
Insp. Ken Davies, the head of the Vancouver police department’s traffic section, said that normally photo-radar vans are not located at the bottom of hills because many people speed accidentally.
That did not sit well with Johnston’s twin sister. “Cara Johnston asked why we didn’t have photo-radar on the hill because there had been so many accidents,” said Davies. “I looked up the stats and found there had been 76 serious collisions, six of them fatals, in the past four years. I was persuaded.”
Johnston said she witnessed her sister’s death from a following car. “The boyfriend overtook me going very fast,” she said. “His car slide 75 meters when the braked locked. They used the jaws of life…but she died at the scene.”
Governement spokesman Barry Salmon said that there was opposition to using photo-radad at the Boundary location.
“Insp. Davies is quite fervent and there was certainly a reaction back in December when he seemed to be wanting to set this thing up on his own, without going through the process. He didn’t even inform his chief.”
The site was approved by Victoria last month, but not before a frustrated Davies said he “commandeered the van” and began using it on Boundary. In three hours he caught 150 speeders.