Red-light cameras at crash-prone intersections across the province will soon also catch speeding drivers, the province announced Thursday.
B.C. has 140 red-light cameras, including six on Vancouver Island, which can capture the licence plate of a vehicle that runs a red light. A ticket is then sent to the address linked to the vehicle’s registered owner.
After the speeding function is activated, the cameras will also take licence-plate photos of speeding vehicles, and tickets will be sent in the mail.
“We know a majority of significant accidents happen at intersections and red-light cameras are going to be operating at a much higher rate than they have in the past,” said Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth. “If you talk to most members of the public, they say ‘You should be cracking down at intersections because that’s where the carnage is taking place.’ ”
The Ministry of Public Safety will analyze crash and speed data in order to decide which red-light cameras will be activated for speed enforcement. Signs will warn drivers if a red-light camera is capturing speed.
“There is very little public sympathy for those who flout the law and speed excessively through known, high-crash intersections,” Farnworth said. “The signs will be there to warn you. If you ignore them and put others in danger, you will be ticketed.”
Farnworth was unable to say how fast a car would have to be travelling to earn a speeding ticket.
The cameras will be equipped with a dual speed-verification system, which uses 3D high definition cameras and radar which measure the vehicle’s position and speed.
Because the infrastructure is already in place, upgrades will cost less than $100,000 per camera, the ministry said.
The two red-light cameras in Greater Victoria are at Tillicum Road and the Trans Canada Highway, and the intersection of Shelbourne and Hillside.
An average of 84 crashes a year happen at each of the 140 intersections, and speed is a factor in many of them, the ministry said.
The cameras already have technology to monitor speed, and analysis of that data shows that an average of 10,500 vehicles a year flew through each intersection at least 30 km/h over the posted speed limit, the ministry said.
Speed monitoring at the 140 locations between 2012 and 2016 shows that 17 per cent, or 120 million of the almost 700 million vehicles driving through the intersections were speeding, with 1.5 million cars entering the intersections at 30 km/h or more over the limit.
Farnworth said the system is more transparent than the photo radar program which ended in 2001 after being derided as a cash grab. Under that system, police would sit in unmarked vans monitoring the operation of the cameras.
Colin Plant, chair of the Capital Regional District’s traffic safety commission, said he applauds the move by the province to use existing infrastructure and technology to “catch people who are making our roads unsafe by speeding.”
“It’s an attempt to make people who are responsible for a lot of the dangerous conditions on our roads accountable financially,” Plant said.
The commission is pushing the province to adopt “point-to-point” speed cameras on the Malahat as a tool to reduce speed-related crashes. The system calculates speed by measuring the time it takes a vehicle to get from one location to another.
Sgt. Alex Yelovatz, a traffic officer with the region’s Integrated Road Safety Unit, said plans for the red-light cameras are “terrific.”
“This is just one more thing that will make the road safer for everyone,” he said.
Yelovatz said speed and crashes are a problem at the intersection of Sayward and the Pat Bay Highway. Because it’s too dangerous to stop speeding drivers near the intersection, IRSU officers typically set up south of the intersection near Elk Lake and pull over speeders there.
The old photo radar lost public support because the locations appeared to be chosen at random, Yelovatz said. He believes drivers will be in favour of catching speeders at crash-prone intersections.
Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba use automated speed enforcement.
In Quebec, pilot projects showed a 99 per cent reduction in excessive speeding, an 84 per cent reduction in cars running red lights, and a 20 to 30 per cent drop in crashes.
The B.C. government hopes the increased enforcement will reduce crashes and thus ICBC claims, part of a suite of measures aimed at digging the auto insurance agency out of a $1 billion shortfall.
“The pressure on ICBC’s insurance rates starts in one place, the rapid increase in the number of crashes occurring around our province, more than 900 per day,” ICBC board chairwoman Joy MacPhail said in a statement. “We believe this road safety enhancement will have a positive impact on reducing some of the most serious crashes occurring at some of the highest-risk crash intersections in B.C.”
