Speed enforcement added to intersection cameras at five locations in Vancouver and Surrey
Credit to Author: Derrick Penner| Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2020 01:08:06 +0000
Drivers zipping through the intersection of Renfrew Street and Grandview Highway in Vancouver or 96th Avenue and 132nd Street in Surrey will want to keep a closer eye on their speed from now on.
As of Monday, those are two of five locations where speed-enforcement has been added to intersection traffic cameras, the province said, bringing the total to 20 of 35 that the Ministry of Transportation wanted in place by the spring.
“What we’re looking forward to being able to see is what impact on the outcome of reducing collisions and fatalities at those intersections (the cameras will have),” said Delta Police Chief Neil Dubord, chairman of the traffic-safety committee for the B.C. Association of Police Chiefs.
To date, the province has only published statistics for the first three months of the program, between July and September 2019, when just five cameras were in operation. Those five cameras, however, generated 2,370 speeding tickets, Dubord said, with the fastest car clocked at 174 km/h in an 80-km/h zone.
“So, certainly well above anything we would consider safe,” Dubord said.
Like the red-light element of traffic cameras, the speed-enforcement program issues a monetary fine to the registered owner of a vehicle, Dubord said, which officials hope will be a deterrent to speeders and hopefully generate enough evidence to withstand challenges.
However, Dubord didn’t have stats on how many tickets have been challenged nor the amount of fine revenue collected. The Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General didn’t respond with answers to those questions.
However, in launching the program last May, the province estimated that some 1.47 million speeders per year blow through the 140 intersections being monitored by red-light cameras at speeds at least 30 km/h over posted speed limits.
Dubord said the rollout of the remaining speed-enforcement intersections will depend on the preparations of municipalities where the high-priority junctions are located. Drivers do get fair warning with prominent signage at the intersections, which are also listed in a map online.
“Often, (people) will mention it’s a cash cow, we’re just in it for the fine revenue,” Dubord said. “In fact that’s the furthest thing from the police’s mind.”
The additional new locations for speed-enforcement cameras are at Kingsway and Joyce streets, East Hastings at Renfrew streets and Oak Street at 57th Avenue in Vancouver.