Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he’s ‘dead against’ speed cameras, calling them a tax grab, and is in favor of getting rid of them. It’s an issue that has polarized people in urban centers in Ontario and even in other parts of the country. Last week in Toronto, 16 speed cameras were vandalized, one of them repeatedly. While some municipal leaders want them removed, others said they’re doing what they are supposed to do: make roads safer.
On Parkside Drive, bordering Toronto’s largest park, vehicles often speed as they head towards the freeway to the south and along Lake Ontario. It’s here where one pole-mounted speed camera has been cut down six times between November of last year and this July. One camera was taken and dumped into a pond. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow supports speed cameras.
“Cutting down speed cameras is not a joke,” Chow said. “In fact, it is violating the criminal code. It’s mischief over five thousand dollars. The maximum fine is ten years in jail. Maximum. So, it is not a joke. It is a criminal offense.”
Toronto has about 150 speed cameras spread across the city, aimed at slowing traffic mainly near schools, parks and hospitals. But they are continuously being vandalized, about 25 severely, since last fall. Those opposed to them said the cameras don’t discriminate between someone driving five miles over the speed limit or 25 miles over the speed. The issue has raised the anger of Ontario Premier Doug Ford, but not over the damage done to the cameras or to the vandalism.
“This is nothing but a tax grab,” Ford said. “I’ve driven by speed traps that aren’t even close to school areas. To put this photo radar and some people driving through a neighborhood and they’re five, ten kilometers over, they’re getting nailed, it’s not fair. So I’m dead against this photo radar that they have.”
In the Ontario Legislature, opposition NDP leader Marit Stiles was quick to pick on Ford’s comments.
“What an idiotic thing to say. I’m sorry. I can’t even.” Stiles said. “Look, we need safer roads. That’s what we need. That is not a responsible approach to this issue. We have a premier who’s putting booze in gas stations, and now he wants to tear down our speed cameras.”
Ford has said he hopes cities that have them would get rid of the speed cameras. That’s exactly what’s happened in Vaughan, just northwest of Toronto. Its mayor, Steven Del Duca, has suspended, immediately, the automated speed enforcement program on all city streets.
“In the areas where we had speed cameras previously in the city of Vaughan, when the cameras were not functioning, the average rate of speed in those areas was 48 kilometers per hour. That’s eight kilometers over, so I will admit that that is going faster than the speed limit, but it’s, to me anyway, not such an excessive number that we need to deal with it by way of speed cameras,” Del Duca said.
Del Duca said residents have told him they’re more concerned about home break-ins and crime in general. Further west of Vaughan in the region of Waterloo, councilors said their speed camera program has been a success, with nearly 56,000 issued between February and the end of July. The city of Hamilton is looking to increase the number of its speed cameras. Experts said the cameras do work and make streets safer. Toronto mayor Olivia Chow:
“We do know speed kills. Red light cameras, that is, speed cameras, work,” Chow said. “What is it do: it actually slows people down.”
A study by researchers at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and the Toronto Metropolitan University looked at speed cameras at 250 school zones in the city between July 2020 and December 2022 and found that cameras reduced the proportion of speeding by 45%. Chow may be heading for a showdown with Premier Ford, saying the cameras are there to protect the most vulnerable, whether they are children going to school or seniors heading for the doctor, they are protecting citizens.
