THUNDER BAY – Motorists who race through red lights may find it a lot more costly if city officials have their way.
Council on Monday is being asked to approve a red-light camera program at 10 yet-to-be-identified intersections in Thunder Bay.
A ticket under the program would cost the vehicle owner $325, including a $260 ticket, a $60 victim surcharge and a $5 court cost. The city projects the project would bring in as much $2.1 million in fine revenue in Year 1, generating a profit of $1.28 million. By Year 5 the fines would total an estimated $1.7 million, with a profit of $886,000, as motorists adapt to the cameras being in place. The worst-case projections show fine revenues ranging from $1.4 million in Year 1 to $1.1 million in Year 5, and profit margins between $537,000 and $276,000.
The vendor would charge the city $875,000 a year to run the program, which aims to reduce the number of collisions at signal-controlled intersections, of which there were 6,727 between 2008 and 2018.
Of those crashes, 18.8 per cent were considered right-angle, or t-bone, collisions.
A report being presented to council on Monday night says drivers tend to ignore traffic signals for two reasons, either intentionally entering the intersection on a red light, or unintentionally because they were being distracted.
Unlike a ticket issued by an officer, no demerit points are issued for violations caught by a red light camera because it’s too difficult to determine who was actually driving.
At an intersection with a red light camera, a sensor is triggered as soon as the light turns red, activating the camera to take a pair of photographs – one when the vehicle enters the intersection on the red and another showing the vehicle fully in the intersection.
The images are then sent to a processing centre in Toronto for review by a provincial offences officer and if an infraction is deemed to have happened, a ticket is then sent to the registered vehicle owner.
Kayla Dixon, director of engineering and operations for the City of Thunder Bay, on Thursday said the program was instigated by the province in 1998 and fully endorsed by Queen’s Park in 2004. Initially in six jurisdictions, by last year that number had doubled, to 12.
“It’s been piloted by other communities and you sign on for five-year periods,” Dixon told Thunder Bay Television.
“That’s basically because the province has a vendor that provides that service for all the municipalities. The vendor provides all the equipment, they provide the maintenance and operations for it as well, so that five-year contract is basically with the vendor.”
Dixon said the city has a list of potential intersections to install the cameras, but no decisions have yet been finalized.
Next steps include submitting a letter to the Ministry of Transportation indicating a desire to join the program, negotiations with the vendor and the City of Toronto for ticketing processing services and finally an agreement with the MTO to access licensing data to be able to administer the program.
The city also looked at advanced warning lights, which are in place at some MTO-controlled intersections, but learned they actually encourage drivers to speed up to make the light.
