Stopping for a red light may seem like a basic tenant of driving, but it’s a rule that some drivers have trouble following properly.
So the B.C. government has given the green light to increasing the workload for 140 red light intersection cameras across the province.
“It’s about improving safety and it’s about reducing the number of crashes, which means you are reducing the number of fatalities you are reducing the number of injuries,” said B.C. Solicitor General Mike Farnworth.
There are five red light cameras in Kelowna, four of them at busy intersections on highway 97 and one in Vernon, also on the highway.
Now they will click away 24 hours a day, snapping pictures of vehicles that enter into an intersection after the light has changed to red.
As a motorcycle and traffic safety instructor for the Kelowna and District Safety Council, Bill Downey is acutely aware of the life and death risks that Kelowna’s numerous
high crash intersections pose.
“Red light cameras reduce fatal signalized intersection collisions by at least 21 percent,” said Downey.
Are local drivers seeing red over the increase in red light camera operations? Apparently not…
Downey says increasing the hours red light cameras operate is a good start but added,
“We have a lot of work to do in this region to calm traffic down to slow people down and prevent the kind of crashes that are populating our hospital wards and our emergency services resources constantly.”