ICBC launched a major expansion of its red-light camera program today, with more locations, better equipment and a much greater chance of getting caught.
The $20-million expansion will see the total number of intersection cameras in the province rise from 120 to 140.
But the actual number of red-light cameras will more than quadruple.
That’s because while there were 120 intersections in the old program, there were only 30 film cameras, which were rotated on a regular basis from site to site.
The new program will install fully functioning digital cameras at all 140 sites, significantly increasing the chances of offenders being caught and speeding up the time it takes to send out the $167 tickets.
ICBC has published an online map identifying all 140 locations where the new cameras will be installed.
The insurer says 35 of the 140 sites will go live on today and the remainder will become operational by year’s end.
Vancouver will receive the most red-light cameras under the new program, at 46, followed by Surrey (29), Burnaby (11) and Richmond (8).
Overall, Metro Vancouver cities will receive 122 of the 140 red-light cameras.
With new digital cameras at all 140 sites, authorities in theory could catch many times more red-light runners than they did before.
However, ICBC has said that it will not activate all of the cameras all of the time.
"We don’t want people to perceive this as a cash cow so you’ve got to find the balance," Nicolas Jimenez, ICBC’s head of road safety, said in an interview last summer. "Because if the public doesn’t support these things, then the will to maintain them isn’t there. … We want to really maintain public support for the program while optimizing the benefits."
For that reason, ICBC has said it plans to activate the cameras when they’re likely to have the most benefit, such as during the morning and afternoon rush hours.
While the new system will increase the number of cameras more than fourfold, the province has said it is expecting a far less dramatic increase in ticket fine revenue, from $3 million a year to $4.4 million.
To decide where to put the new cameras, ICBC undertook a complex analysis of which intersections in the province would benefit most from a red-light camera.
Road safety engineers looked not only at the total number of collisions at each intersection but also the type.
Certain types of crashes, such as head-on and T-bone collisions, can be significantly reduced by installing a red-light camera.
In contrast, fender benders sometimes get worse if you install a camera, because cautious drivers are more likely to slam on the brakes as soon as the light turns yellow.
ICBC’s analysis also looked at the severity of crashes, giving greater weight to those intersections where crashes were most likely to cause severe injury or death.
The 120 intersections in the old program were not grandfathered in. Those that didn’t meet the new criteria were dropped in favour of intersections where ICBC thought the cameras would make more of a difference.
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