Turning on red light cams to catch speeders a ‘tax grab,’ say BC Liberals

No matter when you drive, on some of British Columbia’s busiest roads, the provincial government is about to have its eye on you. The province is upgrading existing red-light cameras to monitor speeding 24 hours a day.

For now, the province will not be distributing excessive speeding tickets, but will be using the information gathered by the cameras to assess whether tickets are needed and how fast over the speed limit will trigger a violation.

“We know that a majority of accidents, significant accidents, happen at intersections,” said Public Safety minister Mike Farnworth. “One of the things we want to get a sense of is just how fast people are going. If you talk to most people of the public they say you should be cracking down on intersections. ”

The provincial government numbers show that a staggering 84 crashes happen at each Intersection Safety Camera site each year. ICBC has made available on its website a map of where all the cameras are located.

Speed is the top factor in these crashes, with an average of 10,500 vehicles going at least 30 km/h over the posted speed limit.

WATCH HERE: Richmond red light runners raise safety concerns

1:46 Richmond red light runners raise safety concerns

The activation of the cameras to track speeding was triggered as part of the province’s ongoing attempt to reduce rates at ICBC. The public insurer is slated to lose $1.3 billion this year and the province is hoping this change will improve road safety and decrease the number of crashes.

But critics are quick to point out that this change is very similar to photo radar, the controversial technology the province stopped using after a barrage of court challenges.

“The original intent of those red light cameras was to prevent accidents at the intersection, they are very effective in doing that. They have the capability of doing that if they use it for that purpose,” said B.C. Liberal Public Safety critic Mike Morris. “But to expand it is a tax grab.”

The difference between red light cameras and photo radar is that the public will know where the cameras are. The province says the photo radar program, that ended in 2001, used unmarked vans in random locations, issued tickets at low speeding thresholds and tied up police resources by having two officers in each van.

WATCH HERE: Photo radar a tax grab?

“This is not photo radar,” said Farnworth. “It is gauging the speed that people are going through intersections and that is going to help determine where the worst intersections are and what changes need to be made to make things safer.”

The BC Association of Chiefs of Police is applauding the activation of the red light cameras. One of the challenges authorities have in cracking down in speeding is tying up officers in multiple locations for long periods of time. Police also struggle to set up in many intersections.

“Traffic volumes and multi-lane intersections make it difficult for officers to safely pull over speeding drivers at many locations,” said Neil Dubord, the head of the association’s Police Traffic Safety Committee chair.