Green-light photo radar review, gather evidence

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/12/2023 (691 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been more than 20 years since Winnipeg began using photo enforcement. Yet, despite claims by politicians, Winnipeg Police Board officials and chiefs of police that the technology makes streets safer, they still have no evidence to support the assertions.

“I do think that photo radar can make streets safer, but, ultimately, rather than my view and opinion, we need the data and the study to show it,” Mayor Scott Gillingham said this week, as city councillors once again call for some sort of review or analysis of photo enforcement.

The stated objective of the technology is to reduce collisions and road fatalities.

However, after 21 years of use, neither the City of Winnipeg nor government of Manitoba — which authorizes the use of photo enforcement through enabling legislation — have the foggiest idea whether the program is meeting its objective. There is no reliable data or analysis to show whether it’s reducing collisions or fatalities.

Winnipeg is using old photo enforcement technology, well past its shelf life. The intersection safety cameras still use loops embedded in the asphalt and snap pictures of speeding vehicles and/or red light runners as they cross the sensors in the road.

The cameras and sensors are old and falling apart. Soon, they’ll stop working.

The photo radar vehicles that park along busy roadways still work. They make the city a lot of money, but neither the city nor the province has ever collected crash data to determine whether they reduce collisions and fatalities.

Despite that, city hall and police want the province to update its regulations to allow them to use new photo enforcement technology and to deploy it in more places. (Currently, provincial legislation limits the use of photo radar to certain areas, including school zones and construction areas.)

“If it does improve safety on streets, there’s evidence of that, then the (legislation) should change to allow for photo radar technology to be updated and (for) it to be deployed in the right locations,” said Gillingham.

“If” it improves safety.

“If it does improve safety on streets, there’s evidence of that, then the (legislation) should change to allow for photo radar technology to be updated and (for) it to be deployed in the right locations.”–Mayor Scott Gillingham

Even the mayor — a former chairman of the city’s finance committee who also sits on the Winnipeg Police Board — has no idea whether it improves safety or not. Nobody does, including current police board chairman Coun. Markus Chambers, who claims, without evidence, he’s convinced photo enforcement makes streets safer.

Proponents of photo enforcement usually cherry-pick data to argue their case, whether the statistics are related to photo enforcement or not.

Chambers, for example, says road safety has become a more pressing matter because collision fatalities rose to 28 in 2022, up from six in 2021. What he doesn’t say is there is no upward trend in collision fatalities in Winnipeg. Some years they’re up, some years they’re down.

The Winnipeg Police Service’s 2022 photo enforcement annual report shows there were nine fatal collisions in 2021 (not six) — the same number as in 2020. In 2019, there were 16 fatal collisions. In 2016, it was 19.

The WPS publishes limited crash data where some intersection safety cameras are used, but there is no collision data whatsoever for photo radar.

The WPS compares crash statistics at the intersections where the first 12 cameras were installed in 2002, using three-year averages.

Some of those intersections don’t even have cameras anymore, which means the statistics are skewed.

Police also don’t compare crash data over time for the 37 other locations that have intersection cameras. So the statistics are grossly incomplete.

The limited data that does exist show mixed results.

Overall, the average number of collisions per 100,000 vehicles at those locations for 2020-22 is down 27 per cent from 2002-04. Right-angle collisions are largely unchanged, at 5.8 collisions per 100,000 vehicles (from 6.1). Rear-end collisions are down 53 per cent.

The data only includes select years, not all years, and doesn’t include the majority of intersections which have had red-light cameras for years.

The statistics published by police are essentially useless.

The former Progressive Conservative government announced in 2019 it had commissioned an independent study on photo enforcement to determine whether it is meeting the program’s stated objectives.

The study was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and hasn’t been completed. Government has not said when, or if, it will be finished. The WPS in its photo enforcement annual report says the study has been delayed “indefinitely.”

Some city councillors now want a “thorough review” of the program. They should conduct one before making any decisions about expanding photo enforcement.

They should also compare it to traditional police enforcement, where violators get demerits on their driver’s licence. Photo enforcement does nothing to get problem drivers off the road because no demerits are issued to scofflaws, just fines.

Politicians should stop making claims photo enforcement makes streets safer until they have the evidence to back it up.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca