Accidents in B.C. intersections are more deadly than the gang war currently raging in the Lower Mainland.
So while police and the provincial government are struggling to deal with the ongoing power struggle between gangsters over drugs and money, new measures were announced Friday to deal with the vehicle crashes at intersections that kill or injure 53,000 people every year in B.C.
Instead of 30 film cameras rotated around 120 locations, the Insurance Corporation of B.C. is spending $20 million to permanently install digital cameras to deter drivers running red lights at 140 of the province’s worst intersections.
The new cameras were announced by Solicitor-General John van Dongen, who pointed out there are 270 crashes at intersections in B.C. every day.
“The vast majority of this carnage has nothing to do with the intersections themselves,” said van Dongen. “It has to do with the drivers, who make dangerous decisions — particularly those who run red lights.”
While the cameras are currently being tested at intersections in Burnaby, Port Moody, Surrey and Vancouver, ICBC is still putting together the data police will use to choose exactly where the cameras will be installed this summer.
As was the case previously, a police officer will have to review the digital evidence to ensure the infraction occurred.
But offenders will receive their ticket in five to 10 days compared to the old technology, which required manual retrieval of the film, processing and analysis — a process that could take three to five weeks.
There were 23,000 red-light infractions last year in B.C., with $2.8 million in fines collected and returned to municipalities to pay for policing.
Nicolas Jimenez, ICBC’s road safety director, explained that the new cameras aren’t about collecting more cash.
“The point of this program is to change behaviour,” said Jimenez.
Each intersection with one of the cameras will be signed to inform drivers they could be on camera.
ICBC’s last study of the red-light camera program in 2006 showed that crashes involving death or injury declined by 6.4 per cent at sites with red-light crashes, with overall crashes at those intersections falling six per cent.
Intersections are targeted because crashes there are often the most serious, usually involving one vehicle striking the side of another — the so-called ‘T-bone.’
• Video footage using the new technology to show a driver running a red light and nearly causing an accident can be viewed at
http://www.icbc.com/inside_icbc/down...ght-runner.exe.
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So the system will pay itself off in 7-8 years?
