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.
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.