Moncton City Council is joining Fredericton and Saint John in asking for changes to the Motor Vehicle Act allowing the use of red light cameras.
City Transportation Coordinator Stephane Thibodeau says there are between 1,000 and 1,500 collisions each year in Moncton.
He adds when you dig a little deeper you find out about 90% of those are at intersections with traffic lights.
“That means that there is something happening that maybe the lights went out, or when you really dig down through it, it’s usually T-bone collisions,” says Thibodeau. “That means someone went through a red light.”
Thibodeau says this is primarily about public safety, and used the City of Edmonton as an example of successful use of traffic safety devices like red light cameras.
“Really, we don’t want to make revenue out of it, all we want to do is make our streets safer,” says Thibodeau. “When you look at Edmonton, they brought in really good examples, they reduced collisions by 20% and severity by 35%.”
Currently the law states when an infraction occurs, the driver of the vehicle must be ticketed.
“With changing the Motor Vehicle Act to serve the owner of the vehicle means that anything that happens with that vehicle we can serve the person by mail that owns the vehicle,” explains Thibodeau. “They’re responsible for their vehicle.”
With all three major municipalities pushing the provincial government to act on this issue, Thibodeau says he’s hopeful the government will make this a priority issue and get started on the lengthy, difficult process of changing the law.