Stephen Rees's blog

Vancouver Sun

This week’s Friday afternoon announcement is not very significant. The old film cameras at red lights are going to be replaced by digital. There are currently only 30 cameras and 120 locations, but there will be 140 in future.

Of course this is not going to happen quickly or before the election and will still concentrate on intersections. Not speeding. And while crashes at intersections are important, excessive speed is the thing that turns a fender bender into a major casualty. And as the cops on Highway 99 at Bridgeport Rpad this lunch time know it is pretty easy to pick up a bunch of speeders. Actually they had their radar gun on the wrong side of the road, but it is easy pickings as the freeway dimension road has a 60 limit for quite a distance south of the bridge. The other direction should have been the priority as that is a work zone – with narrow lanes and a zig-zag – so the grossly excessive speeds I noticed there were a real threat to other vehicles – and workers on the bus lane construction. A much nigher priority in my estimation. Not that the cops stayed long once the traffic radio stations noticed them.

What are really needed in this province are average speed cameras. And the new intersection camera could indeed be set up to work like that as well, in the right places. Since the number plate is recorded and the distance between two cameras is known, and vehicle covering that distance in too short a time should be ticketed. And there should be none of the shenanigans that befuddled the courts over photo radar.

But of course we actually do not really care about road safety or the lives that could be saved. Much better to hope no-one really notices so get the news out when they are looking elsewhere, because there is an election coming up.