Victoria: Cameras are now clicking at busy, high-risk intersections around B.C., equipped to ticket the fastest vehicles.

Mike Farnworth

Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, has confirmed that automated speed enforcement equipment is now in place at all 35 planned Intersection Safety Camera (ISC) program sites and operating at 34 of them, on a 24/7 basis. Prominent warning signs are in place to warn and deter speeding drivers.

Government is postponing activation of the new speed enforcement equipment at one location – Island Highway at Aulds Road in Nanaimo – until mid-September 2020. This grace period is to allow drivers time to adjust to a recent reduction of the speed limit on the highway there, to 70 km/h from 80 km/h. This site remains activated for red-light enforcement.

A map showing all of B.C.’s ISC sites, and municipal and regional lists of them, are online here (linked by region): https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/public-safety/intersection-safety-cameras/where-the-cameras-are

Since B.C. activated its first five automated speed enforcement cameras at the end of July 2019, the program has issued more than 20,000 speeding tickets. The fastest ticketed vehicle clocked 174 km/h at a location where the posted speed limit is 80 km/h. Quarterly data for ISC red-light and speed violation tickets are here: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/public-safety/intersection-safety-cameras/statistics

ISC equipment captures images and speeds of the fastest vehicles passing through monitored intersections on red, yellow and green lights. Before mailing tickets, which carry fines but no penalty points, ISC officers review the digital images and data to confirm the applicable Motor Vehicle Act charge or charges. Notably, the registered owner of a vehicle that speeds through a red light at a speed-activated ISC intersection would face fines for both infractions.