Councillor, police praise province for bill to allow red-light cameras

The New Brunswick government is paving the way for red-light cameras to be rolled out across the province, and that has some proponents of it and other law enforcement technologies pleased.

Fredericton Coun. Stephen Chase said he's lobbied the province for the past 10 years to let municipalities install red-light cameras.

"I was thrilled to hear that the province of New Brunswick had tabled legislation to enable the use of technology to help improve traffic safety," Chase said.

The province announced tabled legislation Tuesday that would allow municipalities to use red-light cameras, photo radar monitors and automated licence plate readers. The bill would also permit the use of cameras on school buses.

Red-light cameras are typically set up in intersections and record the licence plate of any vehicle that runs a red light, while photo radar monitors detect when a car is exceeding the speed limit on a street, and takes a photo of the car or licence plate.

An automated licence plate reader automatically read the plates of cars that travel within its view, and runs those plates through a database to quickly detect, for instance, whether the car is registered to someone with a suspended driver's licence.

Under the proposed legislation, if a motorist is caught on camera breaking the law, the evidence would be received by an officer. If a violation occurred, a ticket would then be sent by mail to the registered owner of the vehicle, along with a photo showing the offence as it happened, said a news release from the government.

"We have all seen countless examples of motorists ignoring the speed limit, running red lights or passing stopped school buses which had their lights flashing,"  Justice and Public Safety Minister Ted Flemming said in the release.

"It is impossible for law enforcement personnel to be everywhere at once to witness acts that put other drivers, passengers and pedestrians, including children, in danger. This is where the use of technology can be helpful."

In the fall of 2015, a test of red-light cameras at two intersections in downtown Fredericton registered dozens of red-light violations and hundreds of incidents of the speed limit being broken.

Chase said the city already has a handful of intersections it has identified for potentially installing red-light cameras.

However, before that's done, he'd like to see the province change the rules to allow municipalities to get a share of the money from the tickets that are issued.

"I think it's going to be very important for the city to work with the province to learn how this technology can be paid for. It is, you know, it's not an insignificant cost and it does have to be paid for."

Police association applauds move

Robert Martin with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police said officers can't be everywhere at all times, and enforcement technologies like the ones being allowed will act as deterrents to speeding and red light running.

"It is a deterrent factor where people do not know where these [photo radar] cameras are going to be set up, or red-light cameras are going to be, and it can impact and change driver behaviour," said Martin, who's also chief of the West Grey Police Force in Ontario.

Martin said there are six provinces that already permit the use of photo radar and red-light cameras, adding that New Brunswick is in the "middle of the pack" in terms of adopting the technologies.

"I would say that this is the new wave, automated enforcement, simply because we as law enforcement, we're tasked with many other duties and can't be everywhere at every time when you need us, whereas we can deploy these to problem areas to solve community concerns," he said.