- cross-posted to:
- britishcolumbia
- cross-posted to:
- britishcolumbia
Hello Vancouverites, you may have heard about an upcoming motion in Vancouver council that calls for the installation of speed and red light cameras at more of the city’s high-crash intersections. On average there are 22 car crashes resulting in death/injury in the city every day. This is a public safety and public health crisis, and automated enforcement with speed and red light cameras is an effective and efficient way to make roads safer.
The motion will be considered on Wednesday, November 1st. You can help by expressing support either by emailing or speaking to council. Here’s our guide for doing so: https://visionzerovancouver.ca/intersection-safety-cameras/
Thank you for taking action for safer streets. Share the page and encourage other people you know to do the same!
The only speed cameras I feel are a good idea are ones I talked about in another comment. Ones that instead of issuing a ticket, they turn the light ahead red in time to catch the speeder.
I don’t think red light cameras are all thateffective. That’s usually a case of mistimed traffic lights and if they got an engineer out there to properly time them less people would be running yellows.
If we are talking about fatalities there are 2 situations you need to avoid. The most deadly crashes are not rear enders but t-bones in the case of vehicle collissions (sorry corsicanguppy but I’d rather people rear end each other than t-bone) and pedestrian collisions where a vehicle turns right on red into them.
So the best things to do are make sure the intersections are timed correctly so people do not run the lights, and improve the pedestrian safety through something like safer instersections where cars stop further back and can see the pedestrians much more clearly or by banning turning right on red, or ideally both.
I don’t think red light cameras are amazing either, It’s a stopgap until we get better roads, and I don’t love stopgaps. But they do have some positive effects which outweigh the costs, which is enough for me.
Like many things urban planning, we either do something now to reduce injuries a bit… or we keep fighting for years until we can do a bigger change to attack the problem more meaningfully. These cameras pay for themselves so I don’t see why not do something right now AND keep pushing for greater changes long term.
I do agree, we need more creative ideas to reduce dangerous road behaviour…
The Feu de ralentissement éducatif project in Brossard, Québec I thought was a good idea, but had to be scrapped days after as the provincial ministry of transport wasn’t consulted and the direction to “slow down on red” would be confusing.
I would imagine that if the light turned red, it’s pretty self explanatory. This smells like people just wanting to do whatever they want at whatever the cost to whomever may have to pay it.