Red-light runners won’t be smiling as B.C. flips the switch on intersection cameras

VICTORIA (July 13, 1999) — Canada’s first provincewide red-light camera program will start generating tickets from sites in Vancouver, Richmond, and Abbotsford on Thursday, July 15, B.C. Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh announced yesterday.

Once the cameras are active, registered owners of vehicles that run red lights at sites with cameras will receive a $144 ticket and two photos showing the red-light violation — one showing the vehicle outside the intersection while the traffic signal was red, the other showing it travelling through the intersection.

The camera is triggered if a vehicle enters an intersection after the light turns red. Vehicles will only be ticketed if they enter the intersection after the light turns red and continue through it.

“One in five crashes in B.C. occurs at intersections with traffic lights, and those involving red-light violators are often the most serious.” said Insp. Kerry Bennington of the province’s integrated traffic camera unit. “These cameras deal with red-light violators at high-density intersections where it is most difficult and riskiest to stop the vehicle.”

The first three cameras are located in at Kingsway and Nanaimo St, Vancouver; Westminster Highway at #4 Road in Richmond, and at Hwy. 11 and Harris Road in Abbotsford. Cameras will be placed in Burnaby, Delta, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Prince George, Kelowna, Vernon, Saanich, and Kamloops later this year. By the end of next year, a total of 30 cameras will rotate among 120 sites selected by police in 25 B.C. communities.

A project team led by the integrated traffic camera unit is working with police and municipal engineers to identify intersections where crash statistics and traffic density show red-light cameras will achieve the greatest safety benefits.

The program cost about $14 million to develop, or about $120,000 to fully install a site with a camera.

Supporters say the program works. When cameras were installed at King George Highway and 96th in Surrey during a test last year, there were 28 violations a day during the first week. This dropped to 16 a day in the third week, then levelled off to about five a day after the sixth week.