After more than 32,000 speeding tickets were handed out in just three weeks by new automated speed enforcement cameras in community safety zones, council in the City of Vaughan decided to pause the program.
Mayor Steven Del Duca put forward the motion last week to pause the tickets until September, when council is due to receive a report from staff on ways the city can create more effective signage about the presence of cameras.
Are you fucking kidding me?
It’s like pointing out to thieves where all the cameras in a bank are.
The speed limit sign is the only information drivers need. If they are going faster, it’s a ticket.
These automated speed cameras seem to be working exactly as intended. The 32,000 speeders can go fuck right off.
The idea of speed cameras is to get drivers to slow down. To have 30k tickets after their install shows that they’re not doing the job of getting people to slow down.
Its only been 3 weeks and we don’t have much data on how many of them were repeat offenders. We need to give more time for peoples driving habits to adapt to the consequences.
The cameras are much cheaper than cops are for the same level of enforcement and the revenue can be used to further invest in roadway safety like lane narrowing and traffic calming.
The truth is, the speeding issue has been many years in the making as enforcement hasn’t been able to keep up with the number of drivers and 15-20 over became normalized. We aren’t going to reverse that trend in just 3 weeks.
Absolutely. And increase signage and do the other things. Council doesn’t want to look like they’re praying on constituents to raise funds. The goal is to reduce speed, not increase revenue. I feel like taking a moment to assess the situation is a rational approach.
It’s one strategy that works for some people. Speed bumps work for others. Narrow streets work for others. And so on.
It’s also one of the least expensive ways to deter speeding, recoup the costs of infrastructure, and enforce the law.
They just installed them! It’s not like the same people are getting 100 tickets. At least, I hope not. If they are, mandatory retest should be required to drive again.
I think the takeaway is that speed cameras won’t deter speeding because it’s endemic and engrained in the traffic flow. Perhaps the thoughtful pause will determine that traffic calming measures like medians and speed bumps are required. Maybe they’ll install spike strips and speed sensing missiles. Probably a good idea to go to Council meetings to find out.
That’s not true.
Numerous cities report lower overall speeds, and a reduction in traffic collisions when automated cameras are deployed.
For example, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/annoying-thing-speed-cameras-ottawa-they-work-1.6786951 and https://www.sudbury.com/local-news/speed-cameras-proved-effective-at-latest-locations-10758040.
When my city installed the first speed camera, it clocked over 100,000 speeders in 40 days. Unfortunately, we gave drivers a grace period, so no fines were issued at the beginning.
But in those areas, speeding was reduced.
I’d rather have roads designed to be slow and require attention to navigate, but good luck getting anyone to listen to that. Trying to get any speed reduction strategies to be implemented is very difficult because of NIMBYs.
I guess I misspoke. I meant to say that they aren’t detering speeding yet.
In my rural area they are putting 50km signs in the middle of the road on the yellow lines. Makes you feel like you’re threading a needle.
I like that idea!
We have something similar in a few spots around here using flexible bollards.
I don’t get cameras except as a way to get fines money. If you wanted to actually slow traffic, you’d spend that infrastructure money on calming measures that work immediately and constantly. Cameras take effect weeks after the offence (in a small number of people) and only serves to make people watch for cameras instead of the traffic around them. Cameras have a very small area of effect and only for people that see them or know where they are.
If the point is just to punish speeders, make money, and not fix the problem, then by all means, install a few cameras.
The cost of a couple of cameras is significantly less investment and significantly less disruption than the needed infrastructure changes. We are talking 10s of thousands to operate the cameras versus millions to rehabilitate just 1 road. We need to fight for roads to be upgraded to safer standards when they are due for repaving.
Speed bumps and chicanes aren’t millions of dollars. In older neighborhoods with straight streets, block off straight shots and make people drive around to get through; that prevents shortcutting. Bollards and rubber speedbumps are hundreds of dollars.
I’m cynical; I think municipalities depend on photo radar for revenue and aren’t actually going to do what it takes to slow people down when they could get money instead. And if I were really cynical, I’d say the camera companies put them in on percentage, but I can’t confirm that.
All I know know is that I only needed to get one speeding ticket for me to never speed again.
And that was in a speed trap, not because I wanted to be an ass on the road. An 80km/h country road suddenly turned to 50km/h without a warning, and I was already slowing down…
That was over 20 years ago, but I digress.
If people are constantly getting tickets, they should have mandatory driving school and a retest. But still ticket them so their habit can pay for better infrastructure in the meantime 🤑
IDK where you live, but where I am you get demerits and after a certain number you get a suspension and need to take a course to get your license back. But cameras don’t count to demerits, so if you have enough money, speed away. Taking that money for cameras and putting cops on the ground handing out demeritable tickets would accomplish something; cameras do not.
I’d love to see enforcement that leads to demerit points. But you need a revenue stream to pay for officers on the ground, and nobody wants to pay more in taxes to compensate.
Either we use the revenue to fund traffic cops, or we set fines high enough (but proportional to income or net worth) in order for it to be self-sufficient.
We’re far too lenient on drivers that can’t drive safely.
I mean I think its fine if people “know” the places they have to slow down for the cameras, if those places pose a greater risk of damage/injury from speeding than others.
Sometimes I see police cruisers on the side of the road flashing their lights on which seems like a similar principle: they aren’t trying to catch anyone but they are trying to slow them down through the area and it’s effective.
What that does is cause people to slow down where the cameras are, then speed up where they aren’t.
If drivers assume that cameras are everywhere, watching and waiting to ticket them, maybe they’ll just go the posted speed limit.
If we just assume the government is always watching everything we do, there will be no crime! Let’s install cameras everywhere, including in your home, and we can get to 0% crime! What could go wrong?
Driving is a
rightprivilage, not aprivilegeright.Speed enforcement cameras (and red light cameras) are doing something that we don’t have the money to do via traffic officers.
Roads should be watched and laws enforced. Because people killing people with their vehicle shouldn’t be something we view as normal or acceptable, IMO.
Edit: fixed glaring mistake.
Driving is not a right. Not everyone is entitled to it. Blind people, people under 16, people with certain health conditions, people who have had too many DUIs.
I agree with the rest of your comment but driving isn’t a right, we’ve just built a society where it feels like we have to treat it as a right to be fair.
Doh, I got that reversed 🫣 Corrected now.