Speed camera update (Sept.11)

Relax said:
But the more money collected, the more people are speeding?
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Speeding needs to be in quotation marks. In many locations, they lower the speed limit without changing the road design in any way. That leaves the vehicles travelling the same speed on the same road but now they are "speeding". Not safety, just revenue generation promoted as safety.
 
GreyGhost said:
Ottawa has made over $41M with red light cameras. They were sold as improving safety. Surprise, surprise, not a single dollar of the generated revenue has gone to road safety. It goes to general revenue and the police Road safety fund gets allocated zero.

ottawacitizen.com

Road safety fund shut out of millions in red-light camera revenue

Millions of dollars generated by red-light cameras have instead been allocated to the city's general operating budget and to Ottawa police.
ottawacitizen.com ottawacitizen.com
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So who misallocated the funds?

"The road safety reserve fund was established to “ensure sustained investment in road safety initiatives,” and, in 2019, council directed that all revenue from automated traffic enforcement be allocated to the city’s Road Safety Action Plan.

Since that council direction, no revenues from net new red-light cameras has been allocated to the road safety reserve fund,” the auditor general report stated."
 
Douggie is messing with cameras again. Vague wording in the budget that allows province a lot of oversight and latitude in controlling how and where they are deployed and tickets issued. No specifics so things can change in an instant based on a whim (or lobbyist). Some of the changes seem ok (more transparency, CSZ must have legitimate reasons for designation, a mandated threshold below where tickets cannot be issued (no number given)). A seemingly innocuous but possibly interesting decision is more data must be transferred to province. Is this Douggie laying the groundwork to control cameras provincially and keep the money for himself? Like our other discussions on government entities, they are happy to let you do the work until it becomes profitable and then they bring it in house.

toronto.citynews.ca

Ontario budget 2025 would change how speed and red-light cameras, community safety zones operate

The proposed amendments to Highway Traffic Act were contained in the 2025 Ontario budget tabled at Queen's Park on Thursday.
toronto.citynews.ca toronto.citynews.ca

"If approved, municipalities would be required to post more warning signage for ASE and red-light cameras. Officials said cities and towns would require public disclosure on camera locations “to improve transparency.”

The statement said the amendments also seek to give the Ontario government authority to limit when ASE cameras and municipalities could generate and issue infractions for “minor speeding.” Proposed speeding thresholds weren’t provided.

Government staff confirmed the amendments to the Highway Traffic Act would allow provincial officials to create new criteria “that municipalities must consider when designating community safety zones.” Details on the proposed limits of the zones weren’t provided.

Officials added the changes would also give the Ontario transportation minister “more power to collect data from municipalities on their ASE and [red-light cameras.}"
 
Traffic drones are next.
Is it just me or are the yellow lights getting shorter and shorter at red light cameras. There is one near my house and I swear it gets shorter every week! It is like a split second now. Difficult for my daughter to negotiate because she is a slow driver (new) and does not have that sense to speed up when it is going to change.
 
I swear the more affluent neighbourhoods in TO don't have or have hardly any cameras. The hood (Scarborough) is littered with them, and everyone drives like they are crawling or 10 under the limit. For me to get to the 401, which is about 3k, I pass 3 cameras, 2 red light, and 1 speed.
 
sburns said:
I swear the more affluent neighbourhoods in TO don't have or have hardly any cameras. The hood (Scarborough) is littered with them, and everyone drives like they are crawling or 10 under the limit. For me to get to the 401, which is about 3k, I pass 3 cameras, 2 red light, and 1 speed.
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Typically (but not always), more affluent neighbourhoods have streets that are a far better design to control flow naturally (both speed and limited number of vehicles). Cheaper neighbourhoods have simple grids that are designed for well over the posted speed limits (and a hell of a lot of stroads). Fundraising in the cheaper neighbourhoods is more effective as you have more vehicles travelling faster.
 
Does anyone else find themselves focused on their speedometer when approaching and proceeding through a speed camera zone as opposed to having their eyes focused on the road where they should be? Especially in school zones.
 
Fuzzbuster said:
Does anyone else find themselves focused on their speedometer when approaching and proceeding through a speed camera zone as opposed to having their eyes focused on the road where they should be? Especially in school zones.
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Of course. And this is probably why the safety benefit isn't as much as one might think it would be.

In my car, I set cruise control in speed-camera zones.
 
Fuzzbuster said:
Does anyone else find themselves focused on their speedometer when approaching and proceeding through a speed camera zone as opposed to having their eyes focused on the road where they should be? Especially in school zones.
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I set cruise going past cameras. I agree with you though, with so much attention focused on camera, I am not convinced the safety increases nearly as much as they like to pretend.
 
There is one near my work at a school zone, 40 kph which of course most everyone slows down for, then past camera range, back up to 65kph. So maybe safe for a 100 yard stretch.
 
Sunday Rider said:
There is one near my work at a school zone, 40 kph which of course most everyone slows down for, then past camera range, back up to 65kph. So maybe safe for a 100 yard stretch.
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I mean, I think that was part of the reason for the camers, some idiots were excessively speeding around schools and kids got hurt. So it kinda works and does it's job. But yeah short lived for anything past there.
 
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Brian P said:
I am OK with requiring justification for community safety zones. I can point to several ridiculous ones.

As for the prevalence of speed cameras, go drive in the UK or Australia ...
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I've driven in both. Signs are easy to spot and numerous. Some I've seen here are tiny and have small letters.
 
Brian P said:
I am OK with requiring justification for community safety zones. I can point to several ridiculous ones.

As for the prevalence of speed cameras, go drive in the UK or Australia ...
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Wait until the cell phone and seat belt cameras go up at every traffic light controlled intersection...

I've noticed an astronomical amount of speed cameras in some towns now, stouffville comes to mind.

From what I understand the cameras are leased and the municipalities get a very small cut of the fines handed out, not sure how the province is going to try and get their hands on that money.
 
DownUnder said:
From what I understand the cameras are leased and the municipalities get a very small cut of the fines handed out,
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I think its weighted the other way, the operators get a small cut, the municipalities get the bulk.

There are areas where there's cameras that some might consider unnecessary, Goodwood comes to mind - sleepy little 1 stoplight town (and the stop light isn't even directly in town, but a lot of idiots who have no care for their speed who used to blow through this town making zero effort to slow down. A lot of the offenders are the heavy aggregate trucks in the area, so yeah, I totally get why they put cameras there despite it being considered as "unnecessary for such a tiny little town".

Unless you go through regularly (or live there) I'm sure many would think its overkill - there's only a few houses on the streets in question where the cameras are, and not a ton of foot traffic (although in the summer, more than a few gawkers who come to see the buildings from Shitts Creek), but I can understand why the locals want to slow down traffic from the surrounding 80-90kph flow to the proper 50kph through the 4 corners area. In years past I've seen gravel trucks blow through the town doing 80 without making any effort to slow down.
 
Fuzzbuster said:
Does anyone else find themselves focused on their speedometer when approaching and proceeding through a speed camera zone as opposed to having their eyes focused on the road where they should be? Especially in school zones.
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just set the cruise...
 
Evoex said:
just set the cruise...
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Depends if the cruise works at those sorts of speeds necessary. My car won't trigger until 40kph, and some of our local school zones are 30kph (which I think is beyond ridiculously low, but meh), and the absolute lowest speed the cruise will enable on my tractor is 57kph, which is clearly based on it's US roots as that translates to 35mph, so it's useless trying to get through 50kph speed/camera zones - I tend to go through any area with a 50kph camera at 40 instead as extra insurance - when your job is on the line vs just losing a few bucks out of your wallet, you tend to care more about these sorts of things.

I did have someone lose their marbles behind me one time, came around me in the typical road rager panic, only to see the flash a few seconds later when they blew past the camera they obviously had no awareness of despite all the signage. These are the sorts of people I have zero sympathy for getting these tickets.
 
DownUnder said:
From what I understand the cameras are leased and the municipalities get a very small cut of the fines handed out, not sure how the province is going to try and get their hands on that money.
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There are three different models. The most common is camera is owned and maintained by camera company who keeps iirc 30%. Less common is municipality owns the cameras and pays another municipality to process tickets (Iirc 10-15% of ticket goes to processor). Last is fully in-house, I think that may be just peel.
 
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