Expensive and ineffective, photo radar programs exist to enforce dangerously low speed limits. In fact, the best regulators of highway driving speeds are drivers themselves.

In future years, 2009 will likely be remembered by the people of Quebec as the start of an expensive, intrusive, hated and ridiculed program that will fail to deliver on its promises. It took five years for British Columbia to abolish photo radar in 2001 – after spending over a hundred million dollars and producing few tangible results.

Highway speed limits in Canadian provinces are out of step with the reasonable actions of the majority of drivers who travel at safe speeds – albeit over posted limits. Many drivers who support photo radar do so naively, believing that their typical travel speeds offer safety from tickets, yet they frequently exceed the thresholds applied. This can be considered just one of the significant reasons photographic surveillance will infuriate Quebecers and therefore fail.

The promotion of photo radar usually follows a familiar storyline, scripted by its lobbyists, that goes something like this:

A high-profile “Speed Kills” campaign is planned. The well co-ordinated public relations blitz of news releases, newspaper editorial board visits, community presentations, school visits, newspaper ads and TV commercials inform the public that speeding is a major cause of accidents and must be stopped. Stakeholders are recruited. Organized groups such as M.A.D.D., automobile associations, city councils, community chambers of commerce and other interested parties are told in advance about the upcoming campaign and asked for their support and solidarity in ensuring the “Speed Kills” message is delivered and repeated.

Photo radar is presented as an effective enhancer of driving safety. Authorities display convincing statistics to show that photo radar has been an effective safety tool that will free up police officers to do other police work and increase the certainty of apprehension of chronic speeders. The public is told photo radar will only be used on the “worst of the worst." We are made to believe that photo radar will be used on street racers and school zone scofflaws and that reasonable drivers (i.e. you) have nothing to fear.

Photo radar campaigns are run on omissions of material information. For instance, standard operating procedure has been to repeat that speed is a factor in a significant percentage (approximately 40 per cent) of fatal crashes leading to assumptions that it is also the primary cause of those crashes. However, what is omitted is that typically two thirds are “speed too fast for conditions” and two thirds involve impairment. It is a surprise for most to learn that speeding over the limit is the primary cause of only 3 to 5 per cent of crashes in jurisdictions that keep detailed statistics.

There is an odd psychological dimension to the subject of speeding and that is that few drivers see themselves as speeders. Rather, we tend to define our speed as relative, not absolute (like the law). While many gasp at tickets for driving 40 kph over the posted speed, few connect the dots and realize that most drivers are technically speeding when conditions are good. However, the so-called certainty of apprehension promoted by photo radar allows more drivers to connect the dots. And when they do, just as they did in B.C., they will see the law as a failure.

In 1996, 25,000 names were gathered for a petition calling for the removal of photo radar and an independent review of speed limits in B.C. The independent speed limit review was completed in 2002 and it revealed what most B.C. drivers already knew; that limits on some B.C. highways are set incorrectly, mostly too low. Today, drivers in B.C., as with Quebec drivers, routinely drive over the posted limits. If a particular limit is routinely and safely disobeyed by the reasonable majority, it can hardly be called valid. Incorrectly set speed limits are a guarantee of non-compliance, necessitate more police for enforcement, are expensive for motorists (increased fines and insurance), reduce road capacity and efficiency, and ultimately increase disrespect for laws in general.

Highway safety requires two key ingredients: minimal speed variance and reduced traffic volume. Increasing highway capacity and design speed is one way to reduce volume, however danger increases when vehicles impede others and vehicle interactions increase. A much needed improvement in many provinces is “Keep Right except to Pass” legislation – to enhance safety, by reducing both vehicle interactions and speed variance. Laws must be set with the reasonable actions of the reasonable majority in mind. Anything to the contrary and the door opens for arbitrary abuse, as is the case with photo radar. In fact, the Institute of Transportation Engineers recommends setting speed limits based upon an upper limit (85th percentile) of free-flow vehicle speeds. Drivers naturally comply with a limit viewed as reasonable, thus reducing speed variance and therefore potential interactions between vehicles. Everybody wins; scofflaws are fewer and easy to apprehend, drunks are arrested and not simply mailed tickets, drivers are safer, and photo radar is considered expensive and unnecessary.