Published in The BANAR November, 2021
by Christopher Brett
If you drive down Bearbrook Road near Good Shepherd Catholic School you may have noticed signs announcing the installation of automated speed enforcement cameras. Those signs have to be posted 90 days before any tickets can be issued. Starting in January 2022, the cameras will be brought online and speeding tickets will be issued by the radar cameras. Since tickets from photo radar cameras are mailed directly to the registered license plate owner of the vehicle, not the person driving the vehicle, these speeding tickets are not associated with demerit points. Between mid-July 2020 and mid-July 2021, eight photo radar cameras in school zones across the city of Ottawa issued over 100,000 tickets, generating $5.4 million in revenue.
The cameras are to be put in place to control speeding on Bearbrook Road from Centrepark Drive to Innes Road, which is designated as a school zone (it is, after all, in front of Good Shepherd, and a short walk from Emily Carr Middle School, Glen Ogilvie Public School and École Élémentaire Catholique Sainte-Marie). Because it is a school zone, Bearbrook south of Centerpark has been designated a Community Safety Zone, and under the Highway Traffic Act fines for speeding are doubled.
Schedule D of the Highway Traffic Act sets out the fines for speeding in a Community Safety Zone:
- if you drive 1-19 km/hour over the maximum speed limit, the fine is $5 per kilometre
- if you drive 20-29 km/hour over the maximum speed limit, the fine is $7.50 per kilometre
- if you drive 30-49 km/hour over the maximum speed limit, the fine is $12 per kilometre
The speed limit on Bearbrook is 40 km/hour. If you drive 10 km/h over (i.e., 50 km/hour)
the fine will be $50. If you drive 20 km/h over (i.e., 60 km/hour) the fine will be $150. If you drive 30 km/h over (i.e., 70 km/hour) the fine will be $360.
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