Our provincial government has announced that all 35 intersections with speed cameras will be in full operation by spring of this year. First introduced in 2019 fifteen red light cameras with the added ability to check vehicle speeds were installed at high risk intersections. These intersections were mostly in Metro Vancouver, but are also installed in Vernon, Kelowna, Kamloops, Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Mission, Surrey, Pitt Meadows, Victoria, Duncan, Courtenay and Nanaimo.
The Ministry of Public Safety released statistics on the initial speed camera activations. It shows that from July to September, five cameras issued 2,370 tickets for speeding, with the highest speed recorded being 174 km/h in an 80 km/h zone.
The cameras caught 23,883 red light violations in the same time period.
Activated or not, the speed cameras can be found on this map:
Ticket recipients will not receive penalty points for the violations, consequently ICBC will not get penalty point or driver risk premiums from them either. Gone also is the registered owner's ability to nominate the driver of the vehicle at the time of the offence if it was not the owner driving.
Perhaps intersection camera tickets should carry higher penalty amounts than tickets issued personally by police.
Many USA jurisdiction are now removing cameras because marketing lies have been uncovered that cameras don't actually stop speeders or red-light runners, don't prevent accidents, and in some cases cause even more accidents. In some jurisdictions the uncovered nepotism, cronyism and corruption surrounding the ways cameras have been enacted caused on-going legal battles, heads rolling and taxpayers left on the hook for costs of the whole ordeal.
People have some kind of omniscient observer complex if they support this, or worse have insufficient mental faculties to see the on-going circles of deceit between companies peddling these devices and the cash-strapped municipalities.
This isn't your typical painting of the white roses red, this is much more expensive and sinister.
- Log in to post comments
A Google News search for "traffic cameras being removed" shows many articles with Texas state-wide ban, Arizona ban, and other smaller towns now removing their cameras for one reason or another: https://news.google.com/search?q=traffic%20cameras%20being%20removed&hl…
There are simply too many moral hazards when someone in municipal power decides unilaterally to pad their budgets and they "partner up" with companies like ATS to split the profits in exchange for device installations. It's the pinnacle of policing for profits. At the end, when the charade/fraud/unethical arrangements are discovered, the taxpayers are the ones who end up footing the bill for removal, compensation and tertiary costs of municipal chaos.
BC cameras are certainly aligning up to hit all the same markers with money weighing heavily against the intrinsic safety.
First we're told No photo radar, but Red-Light cameras are OK because they save lives (they don't). Then we're told that some Red-Light cameras are converting to "Speed on Green", because they already had this feature, just never turned on. We gotta pause here for a second - why put in a whole radar system into cameras that were being installed as Red-light? It sounds expensive and is gross over-provisioning, but I bet the company who made and installed these devices got paid the whole "deluxe" price up-front, could the people in-charge have fore-planned for the radar expansion all the while telling public No Photo Radar?
And now we're getting even more cameras - but its OK, they don't hide them, they sign them, and post them on Google Maps - so anybody who is even a little bit concerned can simply avoid it by being aware, gee thanks. Can you feel being boiled alive slowly, not really, and that's the point.
Cameras don't stop dangerous behavior. 80% of the majority of reasonable drivers don't drive crazy because they have a life to live and they like it. There is a higher standing goal/priority to road-safety - self-preservation. Problems snow ball when enforcement is non-existent and people are seeing others doing bad things to their benefit. That's why we need warm-bodies out there moderating crazy behavior by pulling people over immediately after the fact, or at-least following up on public reports of unsafe driving.
As an ex-Police officer, you know that road safety is tied to "Three E's":
Education, Engineering & Enforcement.
Cameras don't fit in any of these categories directly. And by pretending that they do, we collectively take-away from the E's above, ensuring that accidents will keep happening, offenses keep piling up, but municipalities are rolling in dough and have it in their best interest to continue the entire regime for as long as they can, or until they are jailed.
- Log in to post comments
... there have been instances in some backward US jurisdictions, in decisions made by small-minded-but-greedy politicians, where the duration of the amber light has been deliberately reduced in order to increase the volume of tickets issued for running the red. It's an outrage, but seemingly they get away with it.
However, that's not the case in BC; there hasn't been a single instance (to the best of my knowledge) where the local authorities have changed the timing of the traffic lights like this. We're Canadians, that's not how we behave. And the world (or BC at least) should be a safer place with almost 24,000 tickets being righteously issued to these dickheads who gun it through the light; hell, I just about got hit by one of these fools this morning, as I waited to complete a left turn.
What should be a huge issue here though, is the idea that they've decided to discontinue penalty points and risk premiums! It's not about the money - or at least, it shouldn't be. I don't feel that our provincial government, or ICBC, are upholding our interests on this. Someone has screwed up, big time, and it has to be corrected.
- Log in to post comments
True, ATS has changed yellow phase durations to as little as 1 second, drasticlaly increasing the rear-end accidents and almost doubling the accident rates at intersections that were supposed to have been mended by the cameras. The DOT standard is 3.5 seconds. Some of the yellow cycles on Kingsway's red-cameras in Burnaby are as little as 3.1 seconds - I know because I have measured them by filming the cycles and counting the frames. Only 1 light I've measured went to a whole recommended 3.5 seconds yellow cycle.
I like how you pride yourself on values, honesty and manners of Canadians, I do too, but for the last 20 years almost 2/3 of the year over year increase of Canadian population (about 1% each year) have come from the third world. Bronco's crash revealed the nasty immigration practices of placing unqualified and sometimes unwilling drivers into "employment seats" just for the sake of work. Some of these driver's families have paid the Canadian employers to invite these young men to Canada and employ them, and are continuously paying them for the privilege, just so the new immigrant can get permanent residence and citizenship.
As an immigrant myself, 20 years, it has taken me a very long time to fathom the principals of liberty, individual rights and democratic co-existence. Cameras are not a solution, they are a means of profiting on the symptoms of cultural growth, and with an inverse incentive, that growth may never peak as high as it could. Its a dissapointing vector towards state surveilance and a tacit acknowledgmeent that honor systems are going out the door, all adults therefore have been downgraded to children.
I firmly belive that laws are a reflection on the commonly accepted prudent practices of the majority of participants, and not the other way around - tail does not wag the dog.
- Log in to post comments
The DOT standard is 3.5 seconds. Some of the yellow cycles on Kingsway's red-cameras in Burnaby are as little as 3.1 seconds - I know because I have measured them by filming the cycles and counting the frames. Only 1 light I've measured went to a whole recommended 3.5 seconds yellow cycle.
This is interesting, and indeed it appears that where the anticipated maximum speed of traffic will be 30 mph / 50 kmh then 3.5 seconds would be correct. It's worth noting that the recommendations vary between 3.0 and 6.0 seconds, dependent on the anticipated speeds on that section of roadway.
Kingsway is something of an oddity, here in the lower mainland. Mostly, we see all the roadways laid out on a north/south east/west grid. Plus, they all have a suffix (i.e. Street, Avenue, Crescent, Place, Way, Drive, etc). Whereas Kingsway is this strange diagonal artery connecting the old 'Royal City' of New Westminster to Mount Pleasant in Vancouver, passing through Burnaby en route.
If you look at how they try to synchronize traffic lights, then much of the City of Vancouver is based on the one-way arterials; they're designed to move traffic to and from the core to the bridges. Burrard Bridge: Hornby/Thurlow, Granville Bridge: Howe/Seymour, Cambie Bridge: Nelson/Smythe, Viaduct: Dunsmuir/Georgia. But this synchronization (only possible if you disconnect or eliminate pedestrian push-button crossings along with magnetic traffic sensors in the roadway) can be found in many places in that municipality such as Kitsilano and Kerrisdale.
Meanwhile, municipalities such as Burnaby have their own ideas of how to manipulate traffic flow; heck, you'll encounter a 'green wave' of traffic lights designed to move traffic on major arterials in Coquitlam in one direction during the morning rush hour, and the opposite direction in the afternoon rush hour. Meanwhile, the District of North Vancouver favours a 'green window' on Marine Drive, and the City of North Vancouver does something similar on Lonsdale, I think.
But none of this stuff works on Kingsway, so far as I've ever been able to determine. It may go point-to-point in a more-or-less straight line, but it's a farce of uncoordinated pedestrian controlled intersections (those flashing green light things they should have outlawed years ago in this province) combined with attempting to facilitate traffic movement at the major centres such as Metrotown area along with essential arterials such as Boundary, Willingdon, Royal Oak, Nelson, Imperial, etc.
So as far as I'm concerned, Kingsway is a restrictive mess, both in Vancouver and Burnaby. It doesn't fit for most road users, and it sure as hell doesn't move traffic in an efficient manner. 'Planning' doesn't really come into it, so much as 'Reaction'. I'm not surprised that some of the yellow light durations are minimal, because maintaining a constant velocity is actually impossible.
As an immigrant myself, 20 years, it has taken me a very long time to fathom the principals of liberty, individual rights and democratic co-existence.
That's a fascinating point of view. Let me ask you a question: after you determined this, did you provide your concerns about yellow light duration to the Municipality of Burnaby traffic engineers, so that they could consider it and respond if necessary? That's what we do in a free society, if we hope to see changes made, in my point of view.
I like how you pride yourself on values, honesty and manners of Canadians, I do too, but for the last 20 years almost 2/3 of the year over year increase of Canadian population (about 1% each year) have come from the third world.
So what are you implying? Absolutely, I am a proud Canadian. Also, an imported one, by chance. We are a country of immigrants, just like the US, only we have the good sense to see this as a strength, and we take pride in. We are welcoming and respectful to all, irrespective of creed, colour, LGBT stuff, religious background, etc, and this is our strength; we take pride in it. But we can't get into political discussions on this forum.
However, we Canadians also set minimum standards for every type of license or qualification. Yikes, I remember my mum remarking many decades ago that we may be the most 'over-governed' country anywhere. But to suggest that the '1% increase' in our annual population will automatically translate into a bunch of devious money-grubbing traffic engineers who deliberately penalize regular folks by fiddling with traffic light timing to increase revenues is absurd. We're Canadians, and that is not the standard that we expect and demand of those new Canadians.
Bronco's crash revealed the nasty immigration practices of placing unqualified and sometimes unwilling drivers into "employment seats" just for the sake of work. Some of these driver's families have paid the Canadian employers to invite these young men to Canada and employ them, and are continuously paying them for the privilege, just so the new immigrant can get permanent residence and citizenship.
Honestly, I know nothing about 'Bronco's crash', or the circumstances surrounding it. You're going to have to elucidate.
I firmly belive that laws are a reflection on the commonly accepted prudent practices of the majority of participants, and not the other way around - tail does not wag the dog.
Prudent practices, eh? Well I'm sorry (no I'm not, it's just that passive/aggressive Canadian thing) but dickheads who deliberately ignore their legal obligation to stop if safe once the light turns yellow, and consequently get ticketed for entering the intersection after the light has turned red, deserve all the tickets and financial penalties that can be levied against them. Not all of our traffic laws are reasonable and fair, but the consequences of disobeying red lights are horrendous. Ever seen an eight-year-old kid hit by an old white guy in a Lincoln, because he sped up to make it through the red light? I have. There is no excuse for this, and although I hate the idea of traffic enforcement by camera instead of a human police officer, it's an extreme offence.
So if you think that deciding to run the red can be done 'prudently' then that's your decision. But it won't ever be my own.
- Log in to post comments
... I was ranting about the speed-on-green component that was magically discovered on-board of the red-light cameras that was just recently "turned-on".
Red-lights, Stop signs, Yields and Rights of Way rules are the sacred corner-stone driving rules that enable cars to move in ways that sometimes intersect each other, but without crashing,.. often. A cooperation rule book that enables the crisscross road-infrastructure itself. I stop at red-lights, etc., because I want to live!
I even account for the drivers who "catch" red-lights - i.e. by not jumping into an early-green, before making sure that everyone has stopped.
But what about the drivers who seemingly just coast through an "established" red-light as if it wasn't even there? I think those drivers need to be taken off the roads immediately, like an IRP, because a red-light camera ticket ain't going to fix that.
- Log in to post comments
... I was ranting about the speed-on-green component that was magically discovered on-board of the red-light cameras that was just recently "turned-on".
We're on the same page here. It was downright odd how that aspect of these devices was announced, and now activated in 25% of them. In some ways, there seems to be too much apparent 'public relations' going on, whilst open information from RSBC as to how things are progressing with red light cameras is in fact difficult to obtain, even for some people at ICBC who should know about this stuff.
Here's a piece of that PR work, from the RSBC site: some of it is actually irrelevant crap used for 'informational' purposes.
| Red Light Tickets Issued | Speeding Tickets Issued | Speed Cameras Active | Highest Speeding Ticket | |
| January to March | 18,316 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| April to June | 20,239 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| July to September | 23,883 | 2,370 | 5 cameras active | 174km/hr in 80km/hr zone |
The number of Red Light Tickets is important, the number of Speeding Tickets is important. Why? Because only by tracking these statistics over time will they be able to make some realistic interpretations of the efficacy of these devices, and whether they were worth the investment necessary to purchase and install them. I actually do believe they can be effective in controlling driver behaviour.
Knowing the number of Speed Cameras Active is also useful information for us road users, and I'll tell you why: if they're a good thing, then there's no rationale for the authorities not to have made all of them active simultaneously. If they're a bad thing, or a questionable thng, then they shouldn't have been purchased and installed in the first place. It's like the stupid game the authorities played with the red light cameras in the first place, when they deliberately limited the activation hours of the various red light cameras in order not to issue too many tickets all at once. I can't wrap my head around that one, quite frankly. There's a deliberate and dishonest game being played here, and I don't like it.
So of course, that's when we get to the most irrelevant 'statistic' they're ready to give us. Fodder for Global News, no doubt. The completely pointless 'Highest Speeding Ticket'. Who the heck (I think that's the word) cares if some young fool in a powerful street car vastly exceeds the speed limit some place? Absolutely, the consequences can be devastating, but that's not why they created red light / speed cameras. These idiots are an anomaly. Red Light cameras aren't going to make a blind bit of difference to some wealthy fool in the Ferrari he got to drive a week after getting his license.
But I sure think the actual vehicle drivers should be nominated, and suffer the consequences against their driver licence. The vehicle owner isn't necessarily the culprit, so the legislation behind this is all wrong.
Meanwhile, they provide us with zero statistical information on the average speed of those getting nailed for approaching these newly activated devices 'too quickly' with zero correlation to statistical crash information for the roadway approaching the traffic light.
But what about the drivers who seemingly just coast through an "established" red-light as if it wasn't even there? I think those drivers need to be taken off the roads immediately, like an IRP, because a red-light camera ticket ain't going to fix that.
No argument on that, either. A danger to everyone, most often caused by some type of visual or mental distraction. And the nomination process - which has suddenly been discontinued (so what's that about, we must demand to know) now makes it impossible for vehicle owners such as companies or families to assign appropriate blame to the fool who intentionally cruised through the fresh red light (whilst driving in their insured company or family vehicle), or stomped on the gas to make it through before the red, despite facing traffic waiting to complete the turn.
- Log in to post comments
- Log in to post comments
Put them in, rip them out.