There are hundreds of speed cameras throughout Ontario, and though police and many others say the devices are causing drivers to slow down, the province could soon require cities and towns to shut them down.
Premier Doug Ford, whose government finalized automated speed enforcement (ASE) legislation in 2019, did a 180 on the traffic calming measure in September, saying they are ineffective at slowing drivers down and calling municipal programs “nothing more than a tax grab.”
Thursday, the premier, joined by a trio of mayors aligned with his cause, reiterated his feelings about the technology and announced forthcoming fall legislation to bring an end to Ontario’s ASE era, “to protect taxpayers and drivers and stop them from being gouged.”
“As municipalities have seen how easy it is to make a quick buck by installing new speed cameras, more and more cameras have been set up across Ontario,” he said during
a press conference at a municipal facility in Vaughan
, a city whose council just passed a motion to bring its program to an end.
Ford argued that the only people slowing down for the cameras are local residents already aware of them. The thousands of others passing through daily, most of whom he said are “going just a few kilometres over the speed limit,” are not aware, and they’re the ones getting penalized the most. He pointed to the hundreds of thousands of Ontarians who have received fines as evidence that the program is not working.
“When you’re issuing 65,000 tickets in three months, that’s not slowing people down,” he said, referring to a single camera in Toronto he claimed has resulted in nearly $7 million in fines.
If municipalities are serious about getting drivers to slow down, Ford said, they should employ other proven “proactive traffic calming measures,” and he announced a new provincial fund to help pay for them.
It includes the installation of large speed warning signs and flashing lights in school zones where cameras have been turned off.
“It also includes speed bumps, roundabouts, raised crosswalks, curb extensions, and other types of enforcement that will keep communities safe without squeezing more money out of the taxpayers,” Ford said.
Here’s everything you need to know about speed cameras in Ontario.
When did Ontario introduce legislation on speed cameras?
The government of former premier Kathleen Wynne first introduced and passed legislation to allow them in
, but the Liberals lost the election to Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives before implementing the regulations.
Ford’s government finalized the regulations in
, allowing ASE cameras to be used on local roads in school and community safety zones where the speed limit is 80 km/h or less.
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