The Prime Minister of Ontario, Doug Ford, has denied a request for more than 20 mayors throughout the province to adjust instead of discarding the speed chamber program, promising to eliminate speeding through other measures.
The mayors, led by the mayor of Brampton, Patrick Brown, and the mayor of Burlington, Marianne Meed Ward, say that a total prohibition of automated speed cameras would reverse years of progress in security in school areas and exert more pressure on the police.
But Ford says that they are nothing more than an effective outlet and the fact that they continue to emit tickets show that they are “miserably failing” by decelerating drivers.
He told the mayors in a letter on Tuesday that from 2020 to 2024, the number of fines issued by velocity cameras in Ontario grew almost nine times, with a total of more than $ 52 million.
“Clearly, if the speed point is slowing down drivers, they are failing miserably,” Ford wrote. “They are catches of cash, pure and simple.”
The cities and towns that want to keep the cameras are “greedy,” said Ford, because if they really wanted to deter the sprinters, they would put in speed potholes and roundabouts on problematic roads.
“We know that speed cameras don’t work,” he said. “I have an idea that we are presenting. We are going to put the traffic calm infrastructure (inside), and that will reduce it to zero.”
Ontario’s Prime Minister, Doug Ford, said on Thursday morning that his government soon legislation to prohibit the use of speed cameras, a traffic application tool that Ford has called an “ineffective tax grip”.
The data of several municipalities that have analyzed the effect of the cameras on traffic speeds, as well as a study of the sick children’s hospital and the Metropolitan University of Toronto, show that the speeds are reduced.
Meed Ward said that Ford’s movement to discard the program would mean that municipal and provincial taxpayers are financing the cost of road safety improvements, instead of the sprinters themselves.
“I think it is a reasonable request to make the sprinters pay,” he said in an interview.
“I think it is reasonable to give some relief to good drivers and residents of the law, not have to pay for calming and most important traffic, this will save lives. It will save the lives of our children. Therefore, I am bewildered why it is difficult to support, but I will continue asking.”
The mayors suggested that Ford could amend the program, for example, ensuring that the cameras are only in school zones, which are only operational during school hours, and that it established a minimum speed that triggered a fine.
“If a 30 -kilometer car run over you (per hour), you have a 90 percent survival possibilities,” said Meed Ward.
“If you hit you at 50, and we know that people go those speeds through school zones, your survival falls to 20 percent. Surely to goodness, the cost of a speed for speeding, which is breaking the law, is not as important as the invaluable life of a child.”
The mayors had also asked the provincial government to completely reimburse the municipalities for the income of the lost speed chamber that were being used to calm traffic, the costs of compensation of the personnel and the increases in the costs of municipal surveillance.
Ford said that the province will compensate the municipalities for the termination of speed cameras contracts, but seemed to demolish Ontario on foot of any invoice other than a fund that the prime minister has already promised for alternative traffic rating measures.
“Regarding your financing application to cover the cost of canceling your municipal speed programs, I recommend that you cover these costs by insisting that speed chamber operators do so or using the tens of millions of dollars you have taken from working people through these speeding camera programs in recent years,” Ford wrote.
