Renewed push for photo radar misses the point

Mark Richardson

Let's get a few facts straight about photo radar before we take this any further.

There is no huge call for the reintroduction of photo radar.

Recent deaths and carnage caused by terrible drivers speeding unsafely and/or racing their vehicles against each other on public roads have prodded the media to call for an end to such excess.

So journalists call up well-meaning safety advocates and ask the "experts" for the solution. One way to slow down drivers is with increased enforcement, and that's where photo radar comes in.

The hot topic gets mentioned and drivers shudder, so it stays in the news. More journalists raise the subject and, before you know it, politicians and police chiefs are talking about it and there's an increasing call for its reintroduction.

People are polled, ministers weigh the benefits and it will all come down to politics. And I blame the media for fanning the flames.

Photo radar will not have any effect on so-called "street racers."

Real street racers will scout out venues for comparatively safe drags and cameras will never catch them.

Impromptu racers in Mom's Mercedes or their brother's Sunfire will perhaps get a ticket for speeding, but the cameras won't determine if there was a race involved. In fact, the licensing points system will become less relevant, since photo radar tickets (in past Ontario experience) only fine the car owner and don't affect anyone's licence or insurance record.

Photo radar was introduced improperly in Ontario in 1994, and quickly became a cash-grab.

There is no benefit to finding out a couple of weeks after the fact that you were driving too fast somewhere. There's no discussion with the police officer, no discretion over the issuing of the ticket.

And since the actual driver of the vehicle cannot be determined with the camera – in the absence of front licence plates and without cameras that can photograph the front of the vehicle – there's no penalty of licence points or insurance hikes (which is the real deterrent these days). There's not even a scolding, or a deserved belittling in front of your kids. It's just a transfer of cash.

There is a use for photo radar, but it has a significant flaw.

The Brits, whom Jim Kenzie lauds for their driving prowess on page W16, have got this one down to an art.

There are more than 5,000 speed cameras in England and Wales. The government introduced them in 1992 and a few years later began to use them as a replacement, not a supplement, for traffic enforcement. In seven years, more than 1,000 of the U.K.'s 7,525 traffic police have been redeployed into much-needed crime and anti-terrorism units.

The British have plenty of hidden speed traps, but cameras aren't part of them. They don't hide their speed cameras as we did back in 1994. The camera boxes are brightly painted and announced with signs on the road, and often installed at "accident blackspots" known for frequent crashes.

The theory is that they are intended to slow traffic down before the dangerous area, not to just raise money after the fact. Generally, speeds in 50 km/h limit areas are down – roughly half of all drivers now exceed the 50 km/h speed, whereas nearly three-quarters did in 1996.

"Government's aim – fully supported by us– has been to create a position where anyone `trapped' by a camera has been trapped by a well-publicized bright yellow roadside box or brightly painted vehicle," Andrew Howard, the head of road safety for Britain's Automobile Association, told me in an email this week.

"In other words, they are `mugs'– not `victims.'"

But the figures for casualties have not dropped nearly so much and, depending on whose statistics you trust, they may even be rising. This is because the cameras will never notice a driver who's weaving on the road, or driving over the line, or uninsured, or in a stolen car. Speed is only part of the equation of any accident.

There just aren't enough traffic cops to notice.

Is this the inevitable road we want to choose?

Mark Richardson is the editor of Wheels. mrichardson@thestar.ca

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