British Columbians give the green light to red light cameras

Have you ever been nabbed by a traffic camera as you tried to get through an intersection before the light turned red?

Turns out many British Columbians are perfectly happy with this method of traffic enforcement, with many saying in a new poll that they don’t mind cameras that capture speed or monitor red lights.

Seven in 10 of the 800 adults surveyed told Research Co. they’re in favour of using red light cameras to catch drivers speeding through intersections.

Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed also support using speed-on-green cameras, which measure the speed of a vehicle as it passes.

“The reliance on red light cameras to issue tickets for speeding is not politically contentious in British Columbia,” Mario Canseco, president of Research Co., said in a news release.

In fact, support for the cameras remains steady across the political spectrum, his research suggests.

Support for mobile speed-on-green cameras, which don’t stay at one intersection but move around, wasn’t as strong. And support for point-to-point speed enforcement was weaker, though still above 50%.

British Columbians surveyed also told researchers they often see speeding cars during their travels, and three in five of them support lowering speed limits.

The Insurance Corporation of BC operates 140 red light cameras in 26 communities across the province. Of those cameras, 35 are equipped to identify and ticket speeding drivers at red, yellow, or green lights.