70% of B.C. residents support using red-light cameras to snag speeders: survey

More than two-thirds of British Columbians support using red-light cameras to catch speeders, a survey released Monday suggests.

According to Research Co., 70 per cent approve of using fixed-speed cameras to catch people speeding through intersections.

The results come just as the province announced that intersection cameras are now operational 24 hours a day at 140 high-crash intersections around B.C. and that they will be issuing tickets for running red-lights.

Plans for speed-activated cameras are set to be announced in the fall, the province said.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth emphasized that the change is not a return to photo radar, a system of cameras in unmarked vans that was ended in 2001.

While fixed-place cameras were the most popular, 65 per cent of B.C. residents also approved of mobile cameras, which could be moved from place to place and measure speed as a vehicle goes by.

The most contentious kind of cameras were ‘point-to-point’ enforcement, which places cameras at two or more distant points on a road.

Just over half of those surveyed agree to multiple cameras that calculate the average speed of cars driving between the points and tickets are sent out to cars whose speed is deemed ‘excessive.’

ICBC reports there are an average of 290,000 crashes per year in B.C., a number that has trended up in recent years.

An average of 94,000 of those crashes occur at intersections and lead to about 73 deaths each year.