Two City of North Vancouver councillors want the province to take action on speed and dangerous road intersections. Councillors Jessica McIlroy and Tony Valente have proposed a motion to prevent crashes at intersections, reiterating a proposal they brought to the council last year.
Their motion notes that most crashes in British Columbia happen at intersections, and speed was the main factor in fatal crashes in BC between 2018 and 2022. Intersection cameras, for both speed and red-light infractions, can be implemented quickly and have been proven to be a cost-effective method of improving intersection safety, the motion says.
The recommendation put forth by the councillors includes two components:
The motion urges the UBCM (Union of British Columbia Municipalities) to call upon the BC government to install speed and red-light cameras at all intersections across the province that have recorded 20 or more casualty crashes between 2018 and 2022. Additionally, councillors propose that local governments be granted the authority to install speed and red-light cameras at their own expense and directly collect fines to improve road safety.
At a council meeting last year, the City of North Vancouver council gave the go-ahead to install three new traffic signals at East Grand Boulevard at East 13th Street and East Grand Boulevard at East 15th Street and to install and construct a traffic signal at Brooksbank Avenue at East 3rd Street.
Some may favor this approach, others most definitely not. While it is true that speeding and the deliberate running of red lights should never be condoned, the pause, the question in the conversation that I ask, is how big a hammer do we use?
What of the other components of traffic? What of cyclists whom – anecdotally – as a percentage of their own numbers would seem often the worst at flaunting most any traffic rule before them? What of the pedestrians, the careless rule-breaking types, who proceed against red warning signals, jaywalk, fail to look for their own safety with nary a worry of the potential outcomes.
For myself, before we firmly entrench ourselves in an Orwellian world of constant surveillance here, there and everywhere, I would prefer a total safety approach for all, where all in the community, all forms of mobility adhere to traffic and rules of the road. If safety for one and all is the ultimate goal, then is not involved police enforcement, actually handing out tickets live and in person, not the best approach, provide the most bang and potential change from bad habits?
If these traffic cameras generate a continuous revenue stream, then their value as a safety device is highly questionable.