B.C. pumps brakes on speed traps
Intersection cameras ‘not coming online anytime soon’: Farnworth
VICTORIA B.C.’s solicitor general has delayed the rollout of intersection speeding cameras so the government can gather more information on motorists’ behaviours.
Mike Farnworth said Wednesday that he has revised his timeline to activate some of the 140 existing red-light intersection cameras to catch speeders from sometime in late fall to “they are not coming online any time soon.”
“Look, you’ve got 140 intersection cameras … and there’s a lot of data and analysis and that takes time, probably (needing) more time than was originally anticipated,” Farnworth said.
“When we were announcing it, we said the fall. That was very much the goal. And what I’m saying right now is it’s clearly going to be later than that.”
The goal is still to start the program “at some point.
“And that some point could easily be in 2019,” he said.
“I’m not anticipating making any announcements on this any time soon.”
The delay comes as Farnworth’s ministry wrestles with deciding at which intersections to place speed cameras, at what speeds to ticket drivers and how to share the revenue with local governments.
The government recently switched the existing 140 red-light cameras to a 24-hour-a-day from six-hour-a-day operation and that means they have been gathering reams of additional data on how drivers are behaving, at what speeds they are travelling and where the most dangerous intersections are located.
“There’s still a lot of work being done on the existing program, which was the red-light intersection cameras going from six to 24 hours a day,” said Farnworth. “The ministry wants to see the data and what the worst intersections are and what intersections does (a speed camera) make the most sense.”
Farnworth’s comments on the program’s future came after a statement by his ministry Wednesday that said the formula used to set the threshold speed for issuing a speeding ticket would not be made public.
That could mean motorists wouldn’t know if driving 10 km/h above the posted limit or 30 km/ h would activate the cameras.
“To protect the integrity of the program, the enforcement threshold will not be made public,” the ministry said in a statement.
“In accordance with provincial law, it’s important that all drivers adhere to the posted speed limits.”
Farnworth clarified the statement, saying it’s too soon to talk about such details and he has not made any decisions about what will constitute speeding in the electronic eyes of the cameras.
“Nothing like that has even crossed my desk yet,” he said.
Nonetheless, the secrecy raised alarm bells for critics of the cameras, who say the public will end up frustrated by an arbitrary limit set in secret by ministry officials because it could be changed for political reasons or to ratchet up the number of tickets whenever the government needs more revenue.
“This is a classic NDP approach, which is to be secretive just like they are with the proportional representation referendum,” said Opposition Leader Andrew Wilkinson.
“They should be able to say whether this speed threshold is going to be a significant threshold above the posted limit because it changes people’s behaviour. The goal should not be to make money, but make the roads safer.”
Wilkinson said the cameras won’t have the same amount of discretion police officers currently have to only ticket the worst speeders who are endangering others on the road.
“We all know the police use discretion on speeding matters and do not want to impede traffic that’s moving at a safe fashion, even if it’s moving a few kilometres over the speed limit,” he said.
Not knowing the speed to trigger cameras will undermine public confidence in the program, said Ian Tootill of SENSE B.C., a nonprofit organization that opposes speed cameras.
“The problem with this is their program is not going to have any integrity,” said Tootill. “We can’t trust them unless we have transparency. And if they’ve got transparency, it opens up a Pandora’s box because it puts into question whether they are doing an accurate job of setting the speed limits.”
The 1990s NDP photo-radar program used a formula that calculated the 85th percentile of the actual speed driven on a road as a threshold to trigger a ticket, said Tootill.
But there were still consistency problems, he added.
The government announced the speed cameras in March.
It is also renegotiating how it shares traffic ticket revenue with municipalities to cover the startup and operational costs of the program.
The exact locations for speed cameras have not been set.
“We’ve always said when these particular intersections go up, there is going to be fair warning that you are entering one of these intersections,” said Farnworth. “Right now, there is a lot of work still to be done and at this point I can’t give you any more details than that.”