A spectre is haunting Canadian roads: the real prospect of actually having to pay a fine for not respecting the speed limit. As speed cameras proliferate, particularly in Ontario, some drivers are showing their displeasure. Many of the cameras have been vandalized and one in Toronto cut down six times.
It’s time for a deep breath.
Speed cameras shouldn’t disappear, they should multiply. The cameras are effective and, because their penalty is so easily avoided, they are fair.
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In fact, a recent poll for CAA showed majority support among Ontarians for the cameras. Politicians who pander to the minority of drivers who hate them are gambling with public safety.
Those politicians span the ideological spectrum, from Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford to former Ontario Liberal leader Steven Del Duca, now mayor of suburban Vaughan, and left-leaning Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow.
So busy trying to placate drivers, these politicians ignore that speed cameras work. The hit in the wallet is sufficiently unpleasant that it convinces people to slow down. For evidence, consider that the number of tickets issued by any given camera typically goes down over time.
That effect has been further demonstrated by research from a hospital and university in Toronto. According to their findings, referenced in a recent city staff report, the proportion of vehicles speeding went down 45 per cent after cameras were installed near schools and in high-collision areas.
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A person hit by a vehicle travelling at 30 kilometres an hour has a 90-per-cent chance of surviving. Increase the speed to 40 kilometres an hour, though, and the survival rate drops to 60 per cent. A person hit at 50 kilometres an hour has only a 20-per-cent chance of living.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-sorry-speed-cameras-arent-the-problem/
Yeah but the camera system can be abused to the detriment of the population. They can be modified to give tickets even when no law was broken.
That’s no different than a cop smashing your taillight to give you a ticket.
Yep. Except you’d have a hard time proving it. I remember a story of a New York man who fought against a traffic light camera because he said it was tricked to give out more tickets. And he was right.
From your link, it sounds like the camera wasn’t tricked at all and was working perfectly as intended, the city just modified the programming of a nearby traffic light to shorten the length of time the light was yellow so that more people technically ran red lights that the camera then recorded. That’s a completely different, yet related, thing.
Either way, I’m sure you get my point.
I don’t. All tools can be abused.
Perhaps, but it’s much harder to abuse a speed bump for nefarious purposes.
Except then everyone has to suffer for the stupidity of few, and emergency vehicles can’t got faster in an emergency…
How is a municipal government or authorities going to abuse speed bumps, narrow streets, or other physical deterrents for speeding compared to electronic devices, pray tell?
? You’ve never seen a cop park right over a little dip in the road at the bottom of a hill right where the limit changes?
I’ve never seen stupider argument than I have with these speed camera debates. Read the speed limit sign, look at your speed, follow that speed. I’d prefer your careless ass get a ticket in the mail from a camera than pay a dumb cop to sit there all day letting his buddies and “important” people go while giving everyone else a hard time.
Hey, don’t get mad at me. I follow the speed limit. I follow the damn rules.
The problem is when the authorities start accusing law abiding people for extra money and to reach their quota.
Point your anger at the real problem.