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photo radar in 2006?

brian1969

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I am writing to ask if anybody can help me out with a bit of Ontario highway history.

I live overseas now and will probably get a car. This has me hitting BC and Ontario government websites to request my driver's record. One thing puzzles me: web searches reveal that in the 1990s Ontario had photo radar for only a few months but not since. This contradicts my experience so may be somebody in this forum can enlighten me.

I moved from BC, where I had a perfect driving record, to Ontario in 2004. Then in 2006 I moved from Pickering to Toronto. Since I was within a short walk of my office downtown, I sold my car. My mistake was not knowing that in Ontario, the plates go with the driver. The buyer lived in the Brampton area and his lender helped me with the transaction but neither of them told me about keeping the plates to myself. Towards the end of 2006 I was surprised to receive a letter from an Ontario ministry fining me about $100 for a speeding vehicle with the license plates I used to have. The incident was somewhere in the Toronto area on one of the highways. I reluctantly paid the fine even though I was not the driver. I contacted the buyer and asked him to stop using my plates and to repay me the amount of the fine.

My question is this: if Ontario did not have photo radar since the mid-1990s, then why was I fined? Was there a speed enforcement system in effect in 2006, that was not photo radar, per se, but essentially the same minus the photo? I cannot remember if the letter contained a copy of the photograph. My second question is whether this will show up on my Ontario driving record?
 
Someone may be able to answer the question as to what exactly happened (my understanding is that photo radar is illegal in Ontario, and even those signs which tell you your speed don't record your license and ticket you), but you'll be happy to know that this will not go on your record because they cannot prove that you were the one driving at the time.
 
How well do you know the person that you sold your car to? Any chance he is using more than your old plates? Your identity?

We do not have photo radar in Ontario and any violation of the highway traffic act is a ticket given to you by an officer, in person. How he could get a ticket in your name is beyond me unless he said/showed he was you?

EDIT: I guess the excpetion could be those red light cameras....not sure how they work as I don't run reds! I believe they ticket by mail? Is the violation for running a red?
 
Photo radar was eliminated with the election of Mike Harris in 1995.

Since the fine amount was so low, I also think it was a red light camera.
 
Meanwhile.... back in September of 2015...

NYC Has Installed All 140 School Zone Speed Cameras Allowed by Albany

From this link:

DOT has announced that it has finished installing speed cameras at the 140 school zone locations allowed by Albany.

“Our message is, to all drivers in New York, at all times and all places, you should be driving at a safe speed,” Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said this afternoon at a press conference on Fourth Avenue near Astor Place. “These cameras do protect lives. Speeding is the leading cause of fatal crashes.”

Drivers have to be exceeding the speed limit by at least 10 mph to trigger the cameras. Nevertheless, with just 140 permitted camera locations to monitor 6,000 miles of streets, the program is capturing an incredible number of speeders. The cameras have issued more than 940,000 violations since the beginning of last year, including more than 500,000 so far this year.

The $29 million in fines so far this year will probably lead to a few sensational local TV news segments about how the cameras are lightening driver’s wallets. But the fact is that revenue from the cameras, at $50 per ticket, decreases over time. A year ago, each camera issued an average of 192 violations per day. By last month, that number dropped to 69, DOT said, indicating that drivers are slowing down.

While early results are promising, Trottenberg said the city would have to wait a few more years before it had enough crash data to conclusively show how the cameras are reducing fatalities and injuries.

Today’s announcement marks a milestone for the speed camera program. Albany first approved 20 locations in 2013, then cleared an expansion to 140 last year. Now, more than a year later, the city has completed installing that allotment, with 100 fixed camera locations and 40 mobile units.

Daily News reporter Dan Rivoli asked why it has taken so long. “We wanted to make sure we did it right,” Trottenberg said. “In some jurisdictions, when you don’t do it carefully, the voters go at you and you can lose the whole program.”

Trottenberg was alluding to Long Island, where speed cameras became an election-year hot potato. Outraged drivers pressured Nassau County to shut down its program just months after it rolled out, and Suffolk County terminated its program before the cameras were even turned on. While some in New York City, primarily on Staten Island, have bristled at the safety cameras, there has been no gush of rage against them.

Now that the cameras have all been deployed, street safety advocates are taking aim at the restrictions imposed by Albany on how the city can use them. The cameras can only be located on streets that abut schools, within a quarter-mile of the school. That rules out many streets where speeding is a major problem.

“There are locations where the school is on a side street, and up the block is a main thoroughfare where everybody has to cross to get to the school. And because the law says it has to be abutting the school building, we can’t put them there,” said DOT Deputy Commissioner for Traffic Operations Steve Galgano. “Because the building doesn’t abut the roadway, I’m not allowed to put a camera up.”

Albany also only allows cameras to operate up to an hour before and after school events. That keeps the cameras off overnight and on weekends, when three-quarters of NYC traffic fatalities occur, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles [PDF]. They’re also not on at any time during summer recess, which leads to long gaps with no enforcement and causes rates of speeding to rise before the cameras are turned back on for the school year.

Advocates are pushing to expand the program. “There’s over 2,500 schools. We only have 140 cameras,” said Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Paul Steely White. “Every kid in New York City deserves these live-saving devices.”

While Trottenberg wouldn’t reveal what the city will seek from Albany next year to strengthen the speed camera program, she indicated that it would be a priority. “This is something that I’ve talked about and the mayor’s talked about that we need to tackle,” she said.

Legislators at today’s press conference were a bit more aggressive. “Over time we’ll demonstrate the fact that we are saving lives, and it will be very difficult for my colleagues to reject a program that saves lives,” said Assembly Member Deborah Glick. “Anybody who stands in the way is going to have to answer to their constituents.”
 
Personally, I would be happy to see photo radar return, although I would operate it very differently so that it deters unsafe driving rather than a revenue program:

- Allow the fined individual to direct their fine to a registered charity (sorry, no tax receipt) so the program can't be said to be a tax grab
- Waive the fine, if the actual driver comes forward and signs for the demerit points, with immediate notification to their insurance company
- No unmarked vans, use fixed installations every 3-5 miles down the highway
- Set the threshold for an infraction higher, say 125 kph - so that it's a deterrent to irresponsible driving rather than a nitpick against people who are only a few kms over the limit

- Paul
 
I don't have problem with photo radar. I would like to see some kind of detector used to catch drivers using their phones. So many idiots on our roads are still texting behind the wheel.
 
What I would like to see is a mandatory tough exam every 5-10 years to eliminate bad drivers. Speeding does not equal bad or dangerous driver. People who don't pay attention, who drive below the speed of traffic, who make sudden dangerous maneuvers are the real danger on our streets. The topic on speeding has been discussed to death, maybe we should get back on topic asked by OP.
 

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