285
No, we reap what they've sewn.
this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2026
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Fuck the speeding cameras... unless the people have a say where the data goes and which companies have control over it.
Remember this?
Or this?
The chickens are coming home to roost
Wha? They banned speed cameras?
It's better than that.
Ford has been in power since 2018. In his first two years, his admin advocated for and pushed through legislation specifically to allow speed cameras to be installed in municipalities. This may have been leftover legislative planning from the previous party, but in either case it rode through with conservative favour.
Political interests have since shifted, and with his most recent term as Premier, he's been loudly admonishing any municipality that installs speed cameras, bike lanes or other traffic calming measures because he's parroting nonsense about how it restricts traffic in high density areas and is making a stink about how it all just increases congestion.
It's dangerous, stupid and frustrating. He's made threats to municipalities thay don't agree with his declarations, attempting to deny typical grants allocated to improving infrastructure in smaller regions.
To be fair, there are problems with speed cameras that we've seen in the US, so probably similar problems exist in Canada. For example, they're often outsourced to private companies, and there are privacy and accuracy concerns. Local governments with access to speed cameras can make a lot of money from speed traps, and so they have a financial incentive to make the road harder to drive on, when they should be making roads easier to drive on. People sometimes see speed cameras and slam their brakes, which can cause all sorts of problems.
Usually, the better way to control speed is to design your roads to naturally be a certain speed. Some ways you can do this is by controlling the width of the lanes, the length of the lines in the lane dividers, and the curve of the road.
Speed cameras also unfairly penalize gig workers who are driving all day and driving on unfamiliar streets all the time. The fines imposed for speeding are flat, not based on income, so they disproportionately affect lower income people of all sorts.
OH WELL.
This is a life-saving intervention that is empirically proven to save lives. The lives of pedestrians are more important than the income of gig workers. Pedestrians are an even more disadvantaged and vulnerable class than gig drivers.
It's a tiny problem, we can accept that it is a bit regressive and adjust taxes elsewhere to compensate. For this, I should die? Sort it out, bud.
What the actual fuck. Lower income people can't read a speedometer? This is such a Lemmy man bun and Birkenstock comment.
If the punishment is a static fine it's only illegal for the poor.
The point isn't to punish people, it's to keep people un-killed. If speed cameras don't work on 2% because they are wealthy sociopaths, that's not a reason to abandon the intervention that has been clearly proven to work at the intended purpose of keeping people from getting killed. This is such a bizarre objection. Perhaps it is a reflex earned from decades of looking for how the poor get screwed and that's admirable but it kind of looks like looking for any excuse not to have to slow down.
Do you have evidence that speed cameras with fines are clearly proven to "keep people from getting killed" because I'm pretty sure their primary purpose is revenue generation.
Edit: looking into it, it seems the majority of the available data generally indicates a reduction in collisions and fatalities but apparently the methodology across the various studies has been pretty inconsistent so there's no hard numbers. But apparently they range from no reduction at all to 70 percent from my glancing at the data, apparently how many cameras how far apart and how far from the high traffic incident area are the main determining factors in reducing accidents. I may have overlooked it but I didn't actually see anywhere that shows the speed reduction after camera introduction though.
What are you even doing in this community? Go watch Not Just Bikes for a few hours before you post here again.
When speed cameras were first introduced they led to an uptick in accidents because people would brake suddenly when they saw the camera and get rear ended. This still happens but thought out implementation seems to result in a net reduction in collisions but more data is needed. All this is to say the primary purpose of speed cameras is still revenue generation.
It’s not the speedometer that you need to watch for, it’s the speed limit signs by the street. Many of them are blocked by trees or around corners, and they change the speed limit suddenly and without warning.
This is what it means to be a speed trap. Locals know about it because they live there. Gig workers do not.
The people who did this ban don't care. They're murders who want cyclists to die
Up to 23 from 18, if anyone's curious.
That's the kind of variation is associated with small numbers. I'd be curious to see the overall/5 year average graph.
5 deaths are totally worth saving 30 seconds on my commute!!!!
/s
But some people in this batshit crazy province would unironically agree
All my homies hate Doug Ford
I don't think the increase in death and maiming injuries bothers this voting base.
It absolutely doesn't matter to them.
FordNation is drunk drivers, wife beaters.
It's one thing to ban bicycle lanes, but something else to ban speed cameras. The issue I have with speed cameras is how they are used for surveillance and tracking. In that case the people deserve public access to the data.
Speed cameras shouldn't record all the time?
Just make them use radar (or lidar) and snap a picture if a car is going too fast. Zero privacy issues with that.
not sure if opening camera data to the pubic is the solution, wouldn't that just let anyone track anyone?
A Canadian Province? This is worded as if it could've been any province and not just Ontario
Ontario should be two provinces, the part where people live, and the part that wants to be alberta
Ummm... those are unfortunately the same part. The 905-belt is historically quite conservative. It's the suburbs, which is where (many) people live.
Oof you're right, i just looked at an elections map, i did not think it was that bad
For the second time so far too! Everyone forgets how Mike Harris got elected upon the simple promise he would ban "photo-radar" as it was called then. Just like the truck speed limiters, people go apeshit when you restrict their driving speed. Bring back speed cams, slap a 105 km/h limiter on ALL vehicles! Bring it the fuck on!