The Current - People hate speed cameras. Do they actually make roads safer?

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Vandals are targeting speed cameras across Canada — cutting them down, throwing them in duck ponds, or even shooting at them. As Alberta now moves to scrap the cameras on many highways, we look at the fight over photo radar and whether it actually makes streets safer.

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This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. In October of 2021, Valdemar and Fatima Avila were stopped at a red light on Parkside Drive in Toronto. A speeding driver rammed into their car. They were both killed. Not long after the city installed a speeding camera there and it quickly became Toronto's most

profitable speed camera. Since it was installed, the camera has led to more than 65,000 speeding tickets worth a total of about $7 million. But that camera also became a target. The infamous speed camera south of Algonquin Avenue has been chopped off its base. That was last November.

Just one day after that speed camera was replaced, it was found severed again. And then in December. It's happened again. A speed camera on Parkside Drive has been torn down for the third time in recent weeks. As police try to figure out who keeps taking it down. The city's planning on how to deal with this. It turns out that Parkside camera isn't alone.

Across Canada there are reports of speed cameras being vandalized. In Vineland and Lincoln there's a person or persons with a power grinder and a gripe about speed cameras. Over the weekend three of the cameras or camera housings were cut down. All of them in front of schools where locals say some drivers go way too fast. Sudbury police say a total of 12 acts of vandalism have been reported since the cameras were first installed. The camera was installed on the 25th side road between the 9th and 10th line. The township says it was flagged as a high-speed area. They suspect someone

used a chainsaw to cut the post down. In the province of Alberta, the cameras have been shot at. The government of Alberta recently announced new restrictions on these photo radar sites, including banning them on provincial highways beginning on the 1st of April. Devin Drishan is Alberta's Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors and joins us now. Minister, good morning. Good morning, Matt. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for being here. People have shot at the cameras in your province? Yeah, there's haven't been as many as, you know, three times in a row as some of the cameras

I hear in your neck of the woods. But yeah, the main reasons why Alberta, we made the changes to photo radar was to make sure there was public confidence in the use of photo radar. And as you had mentioned, you know, high ticketed areas that generate lots of revenue, we have that in Alberta as well. And the main reason why the provincial government made the changes that we did was to try to instill confidence that the use of photo radar would be used for traffic safety and not just to generate revenue for municipalities.

And I think we've found the sweet spot with the changes that we will be implementing on April 1st of this year. You haven't removed those cameras though, from city streets, right? I know. So total in Alberta was about 2,200 photo radar sites, which is the most use of photo radar sites in the country. And with the changes that we implemented to restrict it to school

zones, construction zones, and playground zones, should take that number down to about 650. That still makes Alberta the number one user of photo radar in the country, but it really does take it away from where people would call them, you know, fishing holes or cash cow locations that you would set up at a speed transition zone, a place where people are comfortable going one speed, but the speed limit is obviously set at a lower rate, and the flow of traffic was always giving everyone speeding tickets but wasn't actually improving any collision stats. So that's why we made these changes to make sure that again, we could instill confidence

that photo radar was being used for traffic safety. You made that announcement about scaling back the use of speed cameras while you were wearing a barbecue apron with the words cash cow in a circle with a line through it. Why was that part of your message that these are cash cows? Well, we're going for, I didn't make up the term cash cow. It's previous NDP governments and PC governments

in Alberta have called it that, and I think most drivers do as well in certain locations. So we're going for a little flair of the theatrics to make sure that people knew that going forward, if you did get a photo radar ticket, if you do get a So we're going up a little flair of the theatrics to make sure that people knew that going forward, if you did get a photo radar ticket, if you do get a photo radar ticket in the mail, that it's because you're going by someone working in a construction zone. You're going by a school zone where kids are playing and you shouldn't really be speeding,

obviously. So that's why we really want to make that visual impact. Going forward, if you got a photo radar ticket, it was because you're in a vulnerable area where people are obviously conversing with the vehicles. And we wanted to make sure that they knew that they should be slowing down obviously in those sensitive areas. I mean, it's only a cash cow if you drive over

the speed limit, right? I mean, the way to avoid having to pay the ticket is to not speed. True. I mean, the way to avoid having to pay the ticket is to not speed. True, but also when you look at what makes roads safe and traffic safe is going into the flow of traffic. So if traffic is going 80 through a 60 zone as it's transitioning, if you slam on your brakes and hit 60 as soon as you're in that 60, you're actually being more of a danger to the road than going with the flow of traffic. So there's lots of other measures that that's why conventional enforcement of speeding is

it takes all of those factors into consideration where if it was just speed cameras that indiscriminately just take photos of everything, you know, we've had spots where we've had tens of thousands of infractions and when you look at the number of collisions in these areas, they're in the single digits. And so when you have a camera taking hundreds of photos and giving hundreds of tickets every day in a location, but it's one of the safest locations in a city, that's obviously not about traffic safety, that's about revenue generation, the millions of dollars that it brings

into the municipality. So that's changing in Alberta. Mark Neufeld, who's the head of the Calgary Police Service and the president of the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police, has criticized your announcement. He said you wearing the apron with a cash cow on it was an insult to the police and perhaps was unprofessional that you should have considered citizens who have been

killed or injured on Alberta roadways. But he also says that photo radar is working. He said that Calgary had 24 traffic deaths in 2023, 25 so far this year, and the numbers have dropped considerably with the use of photo radars in the past. The chief says, if we take that away, those five so far this year, and the numbers have dropped considerably with the use of photo radars in the past. The chief says, if we take that away, those treatments, they're gone, the inescapable

conclusion is that we get more collisions and statistically some of those collisions will be fatal. So is he wrong? Well, when we, we've, in 2019, there's been a freeze on the use of photo radar in the province of Alberta. And since then, we've actually demanded statistics from all the 24 municipalities that use photo

radar. And we've actually seen it in the case of Calgary, that the photo radar collisions or accidents at photo radar locations have gone up. So that's- Just to be clear though, the chief says that the numbers have gone down and he says that if you take these cameras out, that the roads are going to be less safe. Aside from the money issue, that the roads will actually be less safe.

I just wonder if there's something that you know that he doesn't in that regard. Well, sure. There's three municipalities in the province, Hinton, LaDuke and Fort McMurray, that have taken photo radar out back in 2013. And when we, or 2023, I apologize. And when you look at the statistics from when they've pulled out their photo radar back in 2024 compared to what they were before when they actually had photo radar.

So photo radar statistics compared to without photo radar in the exact same community, their collision rates actually went down. So it's actually unique in Alberta because we have so much data in so many different communities that communities that actually remove photo radar actually saw their collision rates go down. And that's even with population increase over that time frame as well. So it is quite an interesting story when you actually dig into the numbers of photo radar. And for people, just finally, before I let you go, for people who would say that this is politicking about public safety, not just the photo op, but that you are appeasing those who are upset because

they have to pay a fine and that that can impact public safety. What would you say to them? Well, there's three and a half million licensed L-Burdens to drive on our roads and driving is a privilege. And it's something that we always try to find out ways that we can engage with the public to make sure that they're driving as safe as possible. And obviously we have winter and so getting those messages out, whether it's going by snow plows or driving safely or not stunting, not driving impaired, all of these are really

important traffic safety things that we do as the Ministry of Transportation Economic Corridors to make sure that drivers are safe. Photo radar is a tool. That's why we're not banning photo radar. We're just limiting its use to try to instill confidence in Albertans and the use of photo radar going forward. Minister, I'm really glad to have you here as

part of this conversation. Thanks for being here this morning. Yep. Thanks Matt. Take care. And you. Devon Drishan is Alberta is minister of transportation and economic corridors.

He was in his riding of Innisfail-Silvan Lake this morning. There are moves across this country to evaluate speed cameras. The city of Winnipeg has asked the province to expand its photo radar program. Newfoundland and Labrador is planning to expand theirs as well.

Valerie Smith is director of road safety programs at Parachute Canada. This is a charity dedicated to injury prevention. Valerie, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. So drivers who get the ticket don't like photo radar, but from your perspective, what does the research show about the effectiveness of speed cameras? Does it make roads safer? Yes, it absolutely does. So we know from a variety of studies, both internationally, of the

COVID-19 pandemic. Yes, it absolutely does. We know from a variety of studies both internationally, right here in Canada, that speed cameras are effective on a variety of levels. A, they slow people down. When people slow down, we know the number of total collisions is reduced. In some studies, we've seen collisions were reduced by almost 55%. We see that same trend when we look at reduction in injury collisions where people are actually being hurt and sent to the hospital. In some studies, we've seen collisions were reduced by almost 55%.

We see that same trend when we look at reduction in injury collisions where people are actually being hurt and sent to the hospital. In some studies, we've seen collisions were reduced by almost 55%. We see that same trend when we look at reduction in injury collisions where people are actually being hurt and sent to the hospital. In some studies, we've seen collisions were reduced by almost 55%. We see that same trend when we look at reduction in injury collisions where people are actually being hurt and sent to the hospital. In those cases, we've seen up to a 31% reduction. And then we also see from the research that these speed detection devices in many communities have reduced serious and fatal injury collisions by up to 45%. And these are good studies that are being done

all over the world. Why do you think there's a discrepancy between what you're saying and what the minister is seeing? So what I heard from the minister is he's speaking about these isolated cases where statistics have increased, where speed cameras have been set up. But I would argue that the majority of areas where speed cameras have been set up. But I would argue that the majority of areas where speed cameras have been set up in Canada

and overseas, we've seen reductions. So of course, you can always pull some stats out that make and rationalize your case, but in many cases where speed cameras are set up and if you're seeing an increase, there's so many other factors. There's these supersized vehicles that are on the road and reducing visibility to pedestrians there's distracted driving we know that's

increasing so there's lots of other factors but I would argue that speed cameras are working effectively and we know that. Do you understand why people hate them? I mean and it's not just going and chopping them down but the fact that Minister was talking about you come out of a zone where you're driving at 80 kilometers an hour, switches to 60, and suddenly you get dinged or thousands of people get dinged because there's that quick change and you haven't eased off the gas quick enough. Do you understand why there are strong feelings, to put it politely, about them? Yeah, I mean, completely. There's going to be pushback, but you made a really good argument. I mean

People that are getting the tickets They're speeding right and so I I don't really get it Why you know, I wonder why some people think it's okay to ignore the law and to drive fast And they get cranky and and they get upset when they get a ticket to the minister's point I mean, this isn't a partisan issue He called it a cash cow but says that that phrase has been used by NDP and conservative governments. People are annoyed maybe that they get the ticket, but they also wonder where the money from the ticket goes, if millions and millions of dollars are being collected. What should happen with the money

that's collected from those tickets? Yeah, so that's a good point. And in many cases, there are some jurisdictions when they collect the revenue, which can be significant, it that's a good point. And in many cases, there are some jurisdictions, when they collect the revenue, which can be significant, it goes into a general pot. And I think there's a lack of transparency there. I think governments, municipalities, provinces need to work much harder to demonstrate where the funds are going. And there are jurisdictions that are redirecting revenue back into safer roads, into highway safety, into police and court accountability.

So there is a perceived idea around the cash cow, but in fact, automated speed enforcement is expensive. It's expensive, the technology is expensive, it's expensive to implement, and it's expensive to roll out. What people don't understand is in some cases, it's about 30 to 50% of the revenue that's being generated is being expensed to the rollout of the program. For the money that's made on top of that. I mean in Toronto there was that one camera that has generated something like seven million dollars in fines. Where specifically should that money go if this is about making streets safer? I would say it should go into a

road safety fund. It should go into improving our roads. In many cases we have intersections all over our country that need to be improved. We can look at road redesign. We can look at engineering our roads to make them safer. It doesn't have to just be speed enforcement. That's one piece of it. We can look into using those funds to raise awareness to our citizens on why we're doing these programs. The more citizens that are engaged around this and recognize that it's a value to them and their family, the more political will we'll have to keep going with it.

You're in a small community, and we were talking about the cameras being chopped down in bigger cities. Why does this matter to you and the community that you live in? Well, I'm back and forth between Toronto and Cremaror where I live. And I have a 15-year-old daughter and whether she's in Toronto or whether she's in the small

town I live, people are speeding. Right outside the door on a county road in Cremor, there was a fatality about two years ago. And this is on a country road where people were supposed to be going 50 and we're seeing speeds of up to 90 on curved country roads. So I think it matters anywhere. And again, coming back to that cash cow piece, the money has to go somewhere and people get upset because they're getting fined and they're having to separate with their money. In that case, I would just say, don't speed. Whether you're on a highway, whether you're on an urban road, go the speed limit. You're not going to get

where you want to go that much faster by speeding. Valerie, we'll leave it there. Good to talk to you. Thank you very much. Thanks so much, Matt. Valerie Smith is Director of Road Safety Programs at Parachute Canada. It's dedicated to injury prevention. We reached her this morning in Collingwood, Ontario. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal.

I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Charles Morrone is a civil engineer and the founder and president of Strong Towns. It's a nonprofit advocating for safe, livable cities. He wrote an article for his website saying that speed cameras are not the answer. He's in Brainerd, Minnesota this morning. Good morning to you.

Good morning. What is the argument against speed cameras? You said that they are an evolutionary dead end. Yeah, I don't know as I argue per se against speed cameras in all instances, but speed cameras as like the answer, as the thing we do, and then now we clap our hands and walk away, like we accomplished something,

is really the wrong approach to traffic safety. I mean, this entire conversation today kicked off with you telling a story about how someone was killed at an intersection. You then installed a traffic speed camera and now it's the most profitable camera in Canada. Well, okay, you're getting a lot of people for, you're finding a lot of people who are speeding.

Are you actually reducing speed? Would that have actually saved the lives of the people who were killed? That's really, really questionable. And so if hitting people with a fine isn't the answer, what do you do? I mean, maybe there isn't one answer, but how do you start this?

How do you go about getting people to slow down? Well, I think the first thing we have to do is understand why people speed. I mean, this is not like a social deviancy for the most part. When you go out to a street and 95% of the vehicles are going over the speed limit, you can say, you know, we're broken people

and we're all deviants, but the reality is, the streets are designed, they're over engineered for speed. Well, and as the minister said, part of this is about going with the flow of traffic. If everybody is going at a hundred kilometers an hour in an 80 zone and you are plodding along, you may be a danger, right? That's absolutely correct.

When you're on a highway, if you look at a highway situation, you want the flow of traffic to be consistent. And so if the speed limit is artificially too low or if you're slowing people down artificially, you're gonna create a lot of instances of crashes. You're going to induce crashes where you wouldn't otherwise have them. I think though when you switch onto a local street, this is where we get in the tension

because when we have complex urban environments where cars are turning in and out of traffic, where you have intersections, we have people walking, people biking. There, the design ethic needs to change, and it needs to be about designing streets that actually get people to the speed that would be safe. And for the most part, we don't do that. We over-engineer our local streets as if they were highways, and then put artificially low speed limits on them,

and get mad at people or say people are deviant if they drive the speed the street is designed for. Okay, so speak as a civil engineer, how do you engineer those streets such that it leads people to drive at a slower speed? Essentially, you need edge friction. You need a driver to feel uncomfortable when they are driving at a speed that is unsafe.

So if we need to lower speeds, we narrow up lanes, we bring in the curbs, we add trees on the edge instead of take them out. All of the things that we do to make a street wider and safer for driving at high speeds, we do the reverse when we want to lower speeds. We create that edge friction. You want the driver to have some tension

and drivers when they have tension will take their foot off the gas. That if it doesn't seem like a highway, people aren't going to drive like a highway. If it feels like a city street, people will drive slower. That's exactly right. And I think we have to start with the idea that people are good.

I mean, people are not, no one gets up and is like, I'm a, you know, don't care about the law, I'm gonna drive as fast as I want. We have spent a lot of resources, a lot of money over designing, over engineering streets for speeds. Speed cameras just are not a good compensation for that. And yet, it's often cheaper to, I mean, cameras I'm sure are expensive, but it's often cheaper to, I mean cameras I'm sure are expensive,

but it's often cheaper to plunk a camera down in a neighborhood rather than redesign the street, right? Or at least people believe it's cheaper. Well, as someone who is very concerned about traffic safety, I feel like the evolutionary dead end is the notion that when we plop the speed camera up, we've actually done something. Like, okay, now we're done. We, we solve this problem or we've taken care of it.

I've said, speed cameras can be part of the answer. If we have an ethic that we're going to go out and actually fix the street. So if we know a place is really unsafe, people are speeding through here. There's a lot of complexity going on, this is a dangerous spot. And we put up a speed camera,

all of that revenue that we collect at that spot should go back to actually fixing that spot. It creates all kinds of weird incentives when the government is essentially making money off of this bad situation. The goal of every speed camera program should be to have the camera go away because we fixed the street.

Do you take that money and you re-engineer the streets so that you don't need the camera in the first place? In the most extreme instances where we have to use cameras, that should be the end result. Where have you seen this work in the studies that you have done and looking around the world? Where have you seen this work in the studies that you have done and looking around the world? Where have you seen it actually work such that the street is re-engineered

so that people will drive slower? I have not seen these two things linked, and I think that is the problem. There are lots and lots of examples of cities going out and re-engineering streets to get lower speeds. That is very common. That's being done all over North America, including in Canada.

We were in Medicine Hat a couple of years ago. My organization Strong Towns, working with them. And there were a number of streets where they had put up plastic bollards and other things to get lower speed limits in school zones and in other areas. The problem with speed cameras or automated enforcement is that once you go down that route,

the incentives to actually go out and fix stuff kind of go away. And you get what you quoted the police chief earlier is kind of a enforcement mentality and this kind of thing you can't back off from otherwise you're anti-safety or anti-police, that kind of thing. So I feel like I have not seen an instance where these have been paired. I just wonder whether it does change any behavior though. I mean, I have no idea.

It's not more virtuous than anybody. I just don't know how much it costs when you get the ticket in the mail. But I'm assuming if the ticket is substantial enough, doesn't that slow people down? You think, wow, that's a lot of money. Maybe I won't drive that fast next time I drive down the road. There's no doubt that it will change behavior. I think the question is like, how does that change in behavior relate to safety?

So a lot of times the studies that are done will say, hey, here's the number of tickets we issued or here's the speed change at this spot. What happens 10 feet after that speed zone? I mean, what happens once you get through that area? And what happens is that people who know the cameras there, they essentially teach to the test, they know what the test is.

I've gotta be a certain amount above the speed limit here to avoid that camera. I will be at that amount or slightly below. And then limit here to avoid that camera, I will be at that amount or slightly below, and then once I get through that camera, I can resume my normal driving behavior. That's pretty common. I think it's interesting just finally that you said one of the key things is to understand

that people are good, that people generally want to have, safer streets in the communities that they live in, but that we as a society haven't given them the tools to do that. I feel like we put drivers in a really vulnerable situation. I know there's a lot of talk of road rage and people changing when they're behind the wheel and yes, all those things happen. Driving is a really tense experience in a lot of ways

because the design says go fast. We've engineered the street for ease for you to drive very, very quickly. And then we have all this tension that doesn't allow us to do that. It's a tense situation. Chuck, it's good to talk to you about this. Thank you very much.

Thanks so much. Take care. And you, Charles Marrone is a civil engineer, founder and president of Strong Towns. He was in Brainerd, Minnesota. Our speed cameras cash cows. Is it actually a way to slow people down? Photo radar.

And if not, how do you get people to ease off the accelerator? You can email us, thecurrent at cbc.ca. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.