Fredericton councillor calls for red-light cameras

A Fredericton city councillor's call for a new law allowing red-light cameras to be installed at accident-prone intersections is being dismissed by the provincial government.

Stephen Chase said it's too common in the New Brunswick capital to see cars speeding up at busy intersections and cruising through amber or red lights.

He said that could be curtailed by cameras that would take photographs of the licence plates of cars that ran red lights. Drivers who violated the law would be sent a ticket through the mail.

Chase said the idea of red light cameras has a lot of support from organizations such as the Union of New Brunswick Municipalities, Cities Association of New Brunswick and the New Brunswick Association of Chiefs of Police.

Chase said the province's Motor Vehicle Act would have to be amended before red-light cameras could be introduced anywhere in the province.

There are no red-light cameras set up anywhere in Atlantic Canada and a New Brunswick government official says they are not about to come to the province.

Lisa Harrity, a spokeswoman with New Brunswick's Department of Public Safety, said the government doesn't plan to amend the law to allow red-light cameras.

"We do understand that some other jurisdictions have looked into this. In fact, the province of Quebec started a pilot project earlier this year and we're monitoring that," Harrity said.

"But we don't have plans to change the legislation at this time."

Other provinces have cameras

But Chase said the New Brunswick government can look to other provinces, including Ontario, to see how the red-light cameras have been effective.

"They ran that [red-light camera project] for four years and they found that it led to a 25 per cent reduction in collisions in intersections, an 18 per cent reduction in injuries, a very significant improvement," Chase said.

Fredericton's transportation committee received a report in December 2007 that suggested the city install cameras at accident-prone intersections.

In March 2009, the Insurance Corp. of British Columbia, RCMP and the B.C. government increased the number of red-light cameras to 140 from 30. An ICBC study showed crashes involving death or injury declined by 6.4 per cent at intersections where there were red-light cameras.

In Calgary, there are 40 cameras rotating among 44 intersections that had increases in collisions and traffic violation rates.

A report released in February indicated that since the cameras were introduced in 2001, right-angle crashes have dropped by 48.2 per cent, including a reduction in injury and fatal collisions. Rear-end collisions have also been cut by 39.6 per cent, the study found.

Quebec started handing out tickets from its new cameras, which are in 15 key intersections on highways across the province in August. The pilot project is expected to run until February 2011.