Over 4,000 drivers in Sudbury have run red lights in less than a year

It's been nearly a year since the City of Greater Sudbury installed red light camera units at six busy intersections.

"They are functioning well, we're seeing good results from the units and we're happy with the general feedback we've gotten from the community," said Joe Rocca, the acting director of infrastructure capital planning.

As of the end of June 2023, Rocca said 4,050 tickets have gone out to vehicles that have run red lights in the city. 

"From our perspective, the system is doing what it's supposed to be doing. It's looking for people who are running red lights and issuing them offences."

Cost of a ticket

Each ticket comes with a fine of $325, which would mean over $1 million going into city coffers, but Rocca said it's not that simple. 

"Not everybody pays their tickets," he said. "So we don't have an exact revenue number at this point." 

Rocca pointed out that $60 from every fine goes to the Ontario government as a victim surcharge fee, and the remaining $265 goes to the municipality. 

Currently, no penalties apply to an outstanding ticket, but Rocca believes the fines eventually need to be paid on the vehicle in order to actually be able to renew the license plate.

Online claims of system malfunction

"We're not aware of any errors that have been generated by systems," Rocca said, addressing recent social media posts that suggest the red light cameras were malfunctioning and sending tickets to drivers who are not at fault.

He added that similar cameras have been watching over intersections in other Ontario cities for over 20 years. 

"As a vehicle's approaching the intersection and the lights turn amber, the system can calculate whether or not it's likely to stop for a red light," Rocca said.

If it detects the vehicle is not likely going to stop, the system starts preparing to take images of the vehicle as it goes through the intersection. 

"So the first picture it'll take is of the vehicle at the stop bar. That's the image you saw shared on social media." 

In that image, there's there's three really important pieces of information: how long the light was amber, how long the red light has been on  and how fast the vehicle is traveling. 

"Less than a second later, the system will take a second picture of the vehicle within the intersection and it will capture all that information again." 

Rocca said those two images form extremely strong evidence for an offence and are then sent to the Provincial Offences Officer in Toronto for a review before a notice is prepared and sent to the owner of the vehicle. 

He confirmed that the system has been operating without glitches, and no drivers have been ticketed by mistake.

The City of Greater Sudbury does not currently have plans to install any new red light cameras at other locations.

"We're waiting for more time to pass so we can review the impact of collisions on our roads in the community," said Rocca.