Last Page Update March 29, 2007

Photo Speed Enforcement

Photo Radar and Intersection Cameras

Speeding is it a problem?

What does the word speeding mean to you? Someone going faster then you? Someone who failed to slow down when passing close by on your walk?  Someone under the limit but traveling to fast for the prevailing weather or road conditions? Someone who just accelerated and cut in front of you in traffic? Or maybe some one who weaves in and out of traffic?  The problem is that the term "speeding" is not well defined and can be any one or more of these things.  "Speeding" and "Speeders" are basically a catch words for a whole slew of poor driving behaviors.  We have all cursed the "speeders" on many occasions even though they in fact may have not even have been over the limit.  A recent study show that the general public will often complain about speed (for some of the afore mentioned reasons) when in reality there is no problem.  We should base our traffic policies on facts and good engineering and not on hearsay.  Remember that Photo enforcement can only ticket people driving over the limit, regardless of how anti-social there driving habits are.

The police have stated in their PR spin at one time or another that "speeding" is the cause or a factor in 25%-33% of all collisions.  According to MPI's web site "Number of speed related crashes: In 2002, police reported 1280 drivers in crashes who either exceeded the posted speed limit (152) or drove to fast for conditions (1128).  These stats are for all of Manitoba!, only 152 collisions province wide per year were attributed to being over the speed limit!  Winnipeg alone has over 15,000 collisions per year.  That means that in Winnipeg probably less then 1% of collisions are do to speeds over the posted limits!  Properly done studies typically find 1%-5% collisions directly related to speed over the limit. The 25%-33% often touted is a bit of an insurance industry standard and includes all manners of irrelevant data when investigating speed as the cause of a collision such as drunk drivers, police chases, collisions under the posted limit due to weather or road conditions and many others. 

A 2004 police survey showed 45% of respondents indicated that speed is the #1 concern regarding traffic safety interesting but anecdotal.  96% of drivers using the Disreali free way and some 85% of Provencher Blvd. users ignore the posted limit (as it is set too low).  It is easy to get the desired response when asking people about speed (without defining it), just like asking the question: Should some one who breaks the law be punished?  Both types of question can be designed to elicit a positive response when in reality things are not nearly that simple.  Another example is a police survey which indicated "82% of motorists say they have observed other drivers traveling at unsafe speeds on residential streets in the previous week." But this does not mean that they where traveling over the posted limit, and besides photo enforcement is rarely if ever deployed in a truly residential stetting, probably because it can't make enough money to pay for itself!  A survey on photo enforcement in the US showed over 70% support (similar to a survey done in Winnipeg) but on further examination 35% had never heard of photo enforcement and the other 65% had varying degrees of knowledge.  Considering most drivers don't know the size of their tires or their engines displacement most people could hardly provide a qualified answer to the question.  In a nutshell many of these so called surveys are just a PR tool.  Photo to radar has never survived a open public vote.

Photo Enforcement Target Safe Drivers

Proper Speed Limits Increase Safety

Injuries continue to decline overall. This graphs only show the last 10, years despite thousands of more drivers, driving more kilometers

Once again fatalities have remained around 20 per year over the last 10 years.  With 2000 being a particularly good year.

Going back before 1995, the data show a large drop in collision, injuries and fatalities with the reduction slowing some what in the past 10 years.

Speed Kills is a great catch phrase we hear a lot of.  Well the fact just don't show it to be so.  The roads with the highest speeds are also the safest!  As we all are aware as speed increase so does the damage and chance of injury or death, so highway crashes tend to be more severe.  But per mile driven highways are far safer then driving around town at 50 or 60 Kmh.  Speed in its self does not kill, speed inappropriate for the conditions, lack of attention, falling asleep, poor vehicle maintenance and alcohol or drug intoxication are the true issues.  Buy targeting safe drivers creates and promotes lack of respect for the police.

Winnipeg has many major streets with arbitrarily low speed limit of 50kmh.  There is no rhyme or reason and no necessity for this either.  If you look at the streets the city can't claim it is because of a school, shopping area, or even residential area, as these excuses are often contradicted further down the same road.  Worse yet, speed studies done by the city show many of these roads should be posted higher (most often from 50kmh to 60kmh) yet they have not and are heavily monitored by Photo enforcement. 

One concern many people have is that if the speed limits are raised, the speeds traveled on these roads will become even worse.  This not the case.  Let's take for example, an under-posted 50kmh zone where the 85th percentile speed is 65kmh, meaning most of the traffic is traveling 15kmh over the posted limit.  Many people wrongly believe that if the limit is increased to 60kmh everyone will now be driving at 75kmh.  A study done in Florida showed a mere 1mph increase in speeds when the limit was raised from 55 mhp to 70mph!  It has been shown that when left to their own devices people are very good at adopting a reasonable speed.  Post it to low or to high and you end up with poor compliance and a wide range of vehicle speeds, which is dangerous.  If you posted the Trans Canada Highway  (under normal conditions, no construction, etc) at only 70kmh or even 140khm it would be soundly ignored by the general public.  Winnipeg needs a consistent engineered approach to setting speed limits.  Ask your self this:  is it ethical for the police/city to collect fines for speeding in an area that is knowingly under-posted?